


Eye Spy

by AnitaNortherbloodDiAleus



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Banter, Canon Related, Case Fic, Complete, Crime Fighting, Developing Relationship, Electricity, Episode: s01e02 Skin, First Kiss, M/M, Police Procedural, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Robotica, Robots, Robromance, Sex, Sexbots, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:58:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 40,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnitaNortherbloodDiAleus/pseuds/AnitaNortherbloodDiAleus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and John go to investigate a break-in and find an android “modeled to look like a certain British actor popular in the teens.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For all of you out that there that cringe and swear against WIP, this is actually a completed work, written all the way till the end (and there's even a little sexy prologue already waiting in the wings). I am posting a chapter–a-day for the first week, and then I will be updating the work every few days or so. 
> 
> I’m no stranger to writing, but this is my first Almost Human fanfic, and my inaugural post to AO3. I fell in love with these characters watching the first season of this show, and I hope that this work illustrates that for you. There are some fun original characters and original robots (and let's face it -- I'm pretty much only in it for the robots) in this piece, and in my head canon they may even get their own little spin off... we shall see! Also, I am an enormous fan of BBC Sherlock so play spot-the-reference if you care to. Just to let you know, I don't own the characters from Almost Human and I gain nothing except the satisfaction that comes with writing something for your pleasure and enjoyment. So enjoy!

Dorian slid his finger an inch-and-a-half down into the cup and raised the temperature of the coffee to 165 degrees, to just where he knew John liked it.  The coffee had been timed to be the perfect temperature at 8:07 am (Dorian’s original estimation of what John's late arrival time would be, based on the average of the last twenty late arrival times) but it was now 8:17 am, and John was later than predicted.  Obviously, DRNs didn't need to breathe (although they did pass air over their synthetic vocal folds to make speech occur) so Dorian didn't exactly sigh in exasperation as he watched the minutes tick, but he pushed the air out of his synthetic lungs through his half-open mouth.  He had often observed Maldonado doing this when she was expressing disappointment or experiencing stress.  It was a learned behavior, another emulation based on his observation of humans, but Dorian actually found that it felt good across his teeth and cheeks (so much so that he sometimes puffed them out and bubbled his lips while he sat thinking in the passenger seat of the cruiser, usually while John drove and scowled).

The precinct was bustling with human cops and their MX partners preparing to go on duty for the day, and Dorian scanned the hallway while simultaneously scanning through his short term files (‘ _the tickle files_ ,’ Rudy had called them) like one might flip mindlessly through a magazine, and waited, as usual.  Dorian's short-term quick-retrieve memory contained files with bits and snippets of things that amused him, intrigued him, or bore further examination. The list included, but was not limited to: dancing (specifically the waltz), the ocean, the many different kinds of laughter, yoga, a catalog of the colors of each and every one of John’s off-duty shirts, snapshots of unusual (and adorable) animal friendships, etc.  A significant amount of the data in the file was information on John; the different nicknames that John had for him, including the letter “D,” which Dorian rather liked; there was a section devoted to John’s eyes: the shape, size, temperature, the way they moved and re-positioned when John was expressing different emotions, as well as all of the colors his iris contained, organized sequentially and cataloged by their three-number RGB breakdowns.  Still another file contained all the vintage books on the shelf at John's apartment, all of the awards and trophies in John’s guest room/trophy room, every sports teams John followed and each of their players, stats, staff, and historical upsets (whilst flipping he archived that last data chunk because close examination deemed it only mildly interesting and it wasn't critical) and a list of everything that he had ever seen John eat or drink and various recipes of how to make each and every item (Dorian secretly marveled at how complex and tedious it was to make whiskey).

The tickle files also contained a sort of syllabus of human art and culture, for although he was a machine, his synthetic soul was designed to be as much like a real soul as possible, and as such, it was a thing that lived and thrived on the stuff of mystery, hope, and love. Having a synthetic soul meant that Dorian brooded at times and craved soul nourishment from things like art, music, literature, history -- and romance.  He had even once dragged a scowling John to a local art museum to stare quizzically at paintings.  The private moments of his daily life contained a great deal of robot navel gazing, if you will -- synthetic soul searching.

One of the tickle files marked ‘Soul’ grew almost daily.  Intrinsically Dorian knew that it was his synthetic soul that separated him from other non-biologicals, and he wanted to grow into his synthetic soul. Subsequently, since his reactivation (and with no recollection of what his existence had been like before his memory files were erased) Dorian had started his soul searching literally with a web search of the world ‘soul.’  Millions of results had popped up, some more significant than others; Dorian had filed away what intrigued him and discarded what he felt didn't apply.

**_Soul (see also Spirit)._ ** There was such an enormous and varied catalog of information that Dorian projected that even if he ran all of his processors at top speed solely on the effort of reviewing all of the data discovered, it would literally take years to process it all.  He boiled it down to a few essential concepts after having reviewed the highlights as well as the history and etymology of the word to a simple concept: self.  His synthetic soul was his self, the sum of all of his processors doing all the stuff that made him  _him_ , made him Dorian, beyond the physical.  Dorian could mentally and philosophically manage that.

**_Soul food._**   Since he didn't really eat per se, he didn't really think that it applied but he researched it anyway to have a working knowledge of the term. 

**_Soul music._ **   This was one of the first results that had really spoken to him, and he’d spent quite a bit of his down time familiarizing himself with all kinds of soul music, from Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway to Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin and beyond.  Dorian loved music; he had discovered Lionel Ritchie down a YouTube rabbit hole one night and had blasted the cruiser for several days with every recording he could find of him until John had said, firmly, ‘Enough.’  The music and the history of The Funk Brothers of Motown had kept Dorian’s processors whirring when he should have been charging in stasis on several nights.

Another result that intrigued him and continued to intrigue him was the concept of a soul mate.  Dorian found the term online one night and had immediately committed the data to his short term memory files: 

**_Soulmate_ ** .  A person with whom you have an immediate connection the moment you meet -- a connection so strong that you are drawn to them in a way you have never experienced before. As this connection develops over time, you experience a love so deep, strong and complex, that you begin to doubt that you have ever truly loved anyone prior. Your soulmate understands and connects with you in every way and on every level, which brings a sense of peace, calmness and happiness when you are around them. And when you are not around them, you are all that much more aware of the harshness of life, and how bonding with another person in this way is the most significant and satisfying thing you will experience in your lifetime. You are also all that much aware of the beauty in life, because you have been given a great gift and will always be thankful.  _‘Finding my soulmate is the best thing that has ever happened to me; I have never felt this kind of love and understanding. We connect in so many ways, it astounds me.’_ Dorian often wondered if he had a soul mate, or if that was something that was reserved only for non-synthetic souls. 

One time during a routine diagnostic check, Rudy had discovered some of the more private information contained in Dorian’s special short term files and the running random lists as well as all of the John related items, and had closed it quickly as if he’d open the door on a personal moment, saying with a wink, “not to worry, my synthetic-soul brother; all secrets stay with me.”

Another file that Dorian had labeled “John Said” contained a history of one-liners, snippets of conversation, images, and click after click of hundreds of little moving snapshots of little things that John had said or done.  He was designed to be empathetic to those closest to him, and John was the human he felt the most connection to.  Some bits he replayed often: 

**_"Synthetic, off."_ **

**_"You're different."_ **

**_"Is all that for one person!?"  
_ **

**_"I do plenty with mine."_ **

**_“Plenty."_ **

**_"Thanks, Dorian"  
_ **

**_"Dorian!"_ **

**_"D, you drive.”  
_ **

**_"Hey, Dorian.  Let's go."_ **

"Dorian. Dorian, did you hear me? I said let's go…"

Dorian blinked at John, now standing before him."Good morning, John.  You're late," Dorian said, matter-of-factly as he handed over the coffee (but not before warming it up several degrees from where it had once again cooled).  John saw the finger tip slip out as he took the steamy cup and grinned. "Thanks, Mr. Coffee," and Dorian knew that despite the snarky remark, John was expressing appreciation with all of the sincerity that he would allow himself.  Dorian cataloged the ‘Mr. Coffee’ part of the remark to his list of John’s one-liners for further consideration later.  Although his colloquialism subroutines contained multiple humor and comedy decoders that enabled him to understand jokes and flip remarks as they happened in real time, he often felt it better to research certain bits (like one might double check an idiom when learning a foreign language). Dorian often double-checked elements of their banter and had even spent many off-duty hours reviewing a sizable catalog of cop/partner pairings in books, television, and film to familiarize himself with cop culture as well as the nature and rhythm of the banter that seemed systematic among human cops.

As they strolled into the bullpen, Maldonado turned from where she bent over a large translucent readout screen and said, “We have reports of a B&E overnight at a warehouse near the river.”

“Yeah, and?”  Given the state of the crime in the area, if there was only one B&E overnight in their jurisdiction, it’d be a miracle.  Kennex waited for the urgency.

Maldonado took a deep breath and continued.  “An anonymous call came in about a half hour ago from an untraceable Darknet VoIP reporting the break-in.  We cross referenced the address given, and the warehouse is owned by a Mr. Charles Dorchestor.  Dorchester deals in technology imports and exports, but also refurbishes and sells a variety of technology-related items online; checkout this website.”

Maldonado crossed to the celo board and pulled up a screen with a scrolling inventory list of a variety of synthetic parts, computer parts, technology tools and other gadgets; John didn't even have to glance at Dorian to know his partner was uploading the list into his memory files. 

“Anything else?  Any… Contraband? Weapons?  Drugs?”

“Unknown.  Look, you and I both know break-ins happen every night; it’s the call that’s red flagging this one for me.  An untraceable call over Darknet? Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just to be a good neighbor and report a crime.  Someone wants us to know about this but doesn't want us to know who they are.  Might be InSyndicate related; they may have broken in there looking for something specific, and if so, I have to assume that it is probably something dangerous.  You two check it out; we've got patrol in the area if you need back up but I want a line on it ASAP.  Dorian, check the traffic cams and any on-location private security cams to see if you can get a visual on anyone coming and going sometime in the last 24 hours.  Find out what’s there and what’s missing.”

“Will do, Captain.” Dorian said before John could speak, and John shot him a glance of mild annoyance mixed with amusement.  Every moment John was in the presence of his android partner was filled with tiny reminders that Dorian was not like the MXs, and like Dorian, he too kept a running (albeit more organic) short list himself of all-things Dorian.

They made their way down to the charging deck to where the squad cars were parked to retrieve the electric cruiser assigned to them.  John leaned out of the driver side window and scanned his thumb at the kiosk adjacent to the exit of the garage. As the thumb print verified, the holographic parking arm turned from caution red to green, and the invisible access-restriction force field dissipated. Before John could reach into the console, Dorian’s hand was already there, handing him his sunglasses with a smile. John grinned out at the windscreen as he accepted the shades; for as much as the android might annoy the hell out of him, these little gestures were endearing and almost sweet, and served to remind John that Dorian always had his back and anticipated his needs, in some ways maybe even more than any other partner that he had ever known.  “Thanks, D,” he smiled from behind the shades while looking out at the oncoming traffic, and when it was clear he pulled slowly out onto the street.

“You’re welcome, man.”

On the way to the warehouse, John pulled into a familiar charging station/convenience store and parked.  The attendant behind the counter was feisty round lady named Mona, and she seemed to live to flirt with his partner.

“Hey, Dorian,” she catcalled over the electronic door chime as they strode in.

Dorian broke into a huge sheepish grin and cocked his head, blushing blue in a flicker of lights across his cheek and up to his temple and John rolled his eyes. The android with the synthetic soul was blushing. ‘ _Fuck me_ ,’ John thought.

“Hey, Mona.”

John reached for his favorite ‘running late’ breakfast – cellophane-wrapped cherry cheese danish -- and this time it was Dorian’s turn to frown.  He looked at him sternly and handed him a banana.  John reluctantly took the fruit, fake scowled, and sauntered to the counter.  He passed his bitcoin stick over the POS pad to pay and Mona smiled again at Dorian saying, “Honey, you must have Xavier Roberts signature on your ass, ‘cause you are a doll!”

Dorian grinned, and with another eye roll, John shuffled them both out the door.

“Alright, come on, Love Machine; let's go.”


	2. Chapter 2

The warehouse was typical; a long, pre-Wall brick building with two levels of cloudy windows, browned by years of grime and smog absorption.  Beyond the gravel parking lot of the warehouse was an unmowed, weedy field, flanked partially by an ivy-covered chain link fence on one side.  John pulled in and parked the car at an angle adjacent to the main entrance but facing the street for a quick escape if the need arose. John glanced at Dorian just as Dorian glanced at him and they rose from the front seats, drawing their weapons simultaneously and moving to crouch side by side on the far side of the squad car for cover.

“Dorian, can you scan the inside of the building from this distance for heat? Movement?”

“I’m not picking anything up from this position. I’ll need to be closer to be sure, man.  Cover me and I’ll move in.”

“All right.  Careful.”

Dorian’s lips quirked the tiniest grin at John’s warning before steeling his face once again towards the door.  He serpentined stealthily to the side of the building and pressed his back against the brick wall aside the steel double doors of the main entrance.  The doors had been forced, and Dorian nudged one open with the toe of his boot, gun pointed skyward, level with his chin.  With the steel door open, Dorian could scan the interior for humans and active robot interference and found none. 

“Clear!” he called to John, and holstered his piece.

The interior was an eerily-silent maze of floor-to-ceiling shelves, mostly bare, save for one end crowded with boxes and crates.  A fine patina of dust covered all surfaces.  “So, what’s the story, Dor?”

Dorian’s cheek bone was a speckled maze of blue as he scanned the expanse of the room.   He walked to the far end where several crates crowded one shelf and started, “Well, for one thing, the cams have been disabled.  However, as far as I can tell, it does not look as though anything has been stolen.  Incidentally, it would appear that Charles Dorchester, the warehouse owner, is out of the country.”

John gave a sideways incredulous glance and said, “Okay, Einstein; how can you tell?”

“Well, I cross referenced his name and found two things; his credit card records and a recent flight itinerary; the flight itinerary shows he is in London and his AMEX usage confirms that.  As far as what’s here and what’s missing, I hacked into a local server here on site (Dorian pointed to a windowed office overlooking the main store room) and there’s an inventory list of what should be here and the serial numbers match the boxes present.  I cross referenced all of the items listed for sale on his public site with the inventory list stored on the server and it is all here. See the bar codes?”  Sure enough, the edge of each of the boxes was striped and numbered.

“Wait, are we authorized to do that?  Hack his credit cards, and shit?”

Dorian blinked, pursed his lips, and cocked his head thoughtfully, offering, “probable cause…?”

John grinned, “You little scamp.  I’ve always liked your style, buddy.  Alright, what else?”

“So, there is always the possibility that something not listed on the inventory is missing, but the dust is pretty evenly coating everything and if anything was missing there would be smudges…”

He trailed off as his eyes traveled to the far end of one shelf.  As if to illustrate his deduction, there at the end was a smeared but unmistakable hand print, then a shoe print, both relatively fresh in the dust.  Dorian and John locked eyes and John telegraphed a warning to his partner as he drew his gun, eyes traveling upwards to the top shelf towering above them.

As silently possible, Dorian scaled the end cap, and when his head peeked the top-most shelf, he froze.

“Hey.  You’re not on the inventory list…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope that you are enjoying yourself as much as I am. I know that this was a bit of a short chapter, so I will be posting another soonly -- I promise!


	3. Chapter 3

Dorian and John stood silently over the android.

Despite John’s protesting, Dorian had easily lifted and lowered the inactive bot gingerly to the ground to where he now lay stiffly on the dusty floor. “John, we can’t just leave him here. He’s in bad shape. He needs help.”

“Dorian, it’s not a puppy; you can’t just bring him home. He probably belongs to…what was his name? Dorchester? He probably works here – crawled up for a nap.”

“John, he’s dirty and badly damaged. We’re taking him to Rudy. Besides, he may be able to give us some insight as to who broke in and why. Maybe he saw something.”

“Dorian.” 

But it was no use; Dorian hoisted the stiff angular bot over one shoulder and carried him back through the maze and out to the squad car. 

“Dorian, how are we even going to get him in there? He’s off. Will he… I mean…can you even bend him? He’s not going to fit in the car…”

Dorian propped the droid with one hand and opened the trunk of the squad car; he slid his hand along the carpeted interior till he found the latch and pulled; to John’s surprise, the back seats folded forward to make a level expanse and Dorian maneuvered the bot in at an angle and shut the trunk.  
“Hunh. Good to know,” murmured John, as they slid in simultaneously and shut the front doors.

“Unlike some, I’ve read the manual,” Dorian straight-faced, and the squad car crunched across the gravel and pulled out into the street.


	4. Chapter 4

“Where did you get this? …er, find him?” Rudy leaned over the motionless bot on the table and cocked his head, mentally noting visible damage and shifting to peer at him from varying angles. Dust coming off of the bot glittered in the late afternoon sun, streaming in from the two-story stained glass windows of Rudy’s lab. Dressed in dark navy mechanics coveralls that were ripped in places and two sizes too big for him, the android looked as if he’d lost a fight. Or a bet. Maybe both. His right eye socket was a gaping hole of exposed mechanics, while the left eye was cold and colorless. He looked more like a dirty store mannequin than the sophisticated man-machine that he really was. John noted the tiniest wince from Dorian when he peered into the dull black socket.

“We found him in a warehouse that got broken into last night. We’re hoping that he can clue us in about who broke in and why. What can you tell us about him? Is he registered to somebody? Is this a bang bot?”   
  
“Oh, heavens no; definitely not a bang…um…Intimate Relations Companion.” Rudy unzipped the coveralls and exposed the chest plate, saying, “I've only read about these, but to the best of my knowledge, this is a BND; based obviously on the same fundamental technology as DRNs, MXs, and IRCs, but developed specifically by a very secretive arm of the British government; he's modeled to look like a certain British actor popular in the teens and has been awarded a Royal Warrant… You know, ‘By Appointment of His Royal Majesty,’ and all of that; anyway, I’ll have to clean him up and examine him, but there should be an official insignia and serial number on his...um...his bum.”

"Cute" John drawled, sarcastically. Rudy eyed him for a moment before glancing back to the BND and continuing.

“A not-too-distant-cousin to the DRN models, the BNDs are tough as nails but tender enough to be your nanny. These models are mostly used by British military for espionage and missions deemed hazardous or too dangerous for humans, but also as peace ambassadors, as bodyguards for the British Royal Family, and, of course, private owners like to show them off as a matter of prestige – ‘meet my bionic butler.’ I believe that even Kate and Wills have one to look after the Royal Grandchildren.” Rudy huffed, gathered his thoughts, then continued. “Like the DRNs, their subroutines contain a variety of synthetic soul-based parameters that enable them to react in situations, feel empathy, learn, interact according to custom and culture, conform to societal norms, adapt easily in a variety of situations, and what have you,” Rudy mused as he continued his poring over the BND.  “When they were first introduced, these bots could easily slide into international situations and adapt quickly to language and customs, often without being detected as non-human; sort of like the ultimate spy gadget – er, no offense, Dorian,” he added quickly.

“None taken,” Dorian murmured, head cocked and eyes still roving over the lifeless bot on the table.

“Much like DRNs,” Rudy continued, “they have incredible strength, agility, speed – and while their physical fundamentals are very similar to sexbots, they function socially using a similar synthetic soul technology as DRNs. Over the years, as they have become more commonplace in certain international circles, I would suspect that they don’t slip in and out of situations as easily and as unnoticed as they might once have, but still -- incredibly useful, you know? There are some unique features, however.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I have to do a bit of research to confirm, but from what I can recall, these models have two modes; they have a primary, standard mode that runs a synth soul program, but when switched into their secondary mode, they operate on a programming code that is much more closely related to MX programming modules. This secondary mode is a combat mode that makes them react situationally more like the MXs.”

“Like switching their souls off,” Dorian stated more than asked as blue lights punctuated his cheek.

' _He’s probably downloading and reading the damn manual right now_ ,' John speculated silently, but Rudy continued.

“Well, sort of. It’s a combat mode, wherein their empathetic processes are suppressed by their overriding strictly logic-based protocols. It’s just a mode, Dorian,” Rudy offered placatingly to the frowning DRN. “Again, the basics are the same. It’s more like -- switching their free will off so that they adhere more strictly to direct orders in combat settings. It’s more complicated than that, but that is the essential concept.”

“Anything else …different?” John frowned and tensed up his chin while simultaneously flaring out his nostrils, remembering the thought of his first intimate encounter with a naked MX in the locker room of the android charging facility, still haunted by the smooth nothingness between their Ken-doll legs.

As if Rudy read his mind, he said, “No, these were designed for espionage, so it would be considerably more ...effective,” Rudy cast an insinuating glance, “and in the best interest of the final objective that they be as like a real human as possible. In all ways,” he added with another sideways glance and head nod towards the middle of the BND.

Even inactivated and dirty, it wasn't hard for John to imagine the bot as ridiculously good looking; pale skin over a lean swimmers build, ginger hair with auburn tones, and chiseled features framed by the cheek bones of a fashion model.

“Yeah, alright; so, does he come with a tuxedo and an Aston Martin? Will he make me a dry martini?”

“Probably. Unfortunately, our friend here won’t be boiling the kettle or ‘shaking, not stirring’ anytime soon without some repairs. I can tell at a glance that he needs exterior repairs; who knows what he needs internally. We don’t even know the last time he was active, much less when his last diagnostic was run. He’s got dust in his creases, grime smears; if the skin is compromised, there could be water damage, depending on where he’s been and what he’s been doing. I’d go so far as to say…” he let his words trail off and finished the thought silently – ‘ _bot abuse_ ’ - not wanting to put ideas into the head of the impressionable DRN across from him who was already tensing his forehead in concern, but the idea hung in the air unspoken.

“Obviously, leave him with me. I will make him as much of a priority as I can and get him cleaned up and functioning at least enough to turn him on and get his registration info. I've got some MX repairs for the department that need my attention but I can work on him a little after hours as well. I’ll alert you once it’s done and then you two can come back and question him, find out what the story is. But it might be a few days, so I beg of you -- please be patient.”

“Be careful, Rudy; Maldonado speculated that InSyndicate might be involved somehow, so it might be a trap. If these guys were designed for espionage, he might wake up and start swinging, so just …be careful,” John repeated. “You might even want to wait till we’re here to turn him on…”

“Don't worry, John; I'll keep the kill switch handy in case I have to power him down quickly. This is not my first robot rodeo, you know.”

John nodded with a slight shrug of his lower lip as Dorian grinned, saying, “Thanks, Rudy; we’ll wait to hear from you.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Dorian watched the shimmery pink-orange sun set reflected in the buildings going by as the cruiser made its way through traffic, cheek fluttering blue periodically but silent all the while.  They’d debriefed Maldonado and Stahl on the break-in and the facts they knew so far and it was nearing the end of the day shift. 

“You alright?” John asked casually.  His eyes left the road for a moment to glance at Dorian, still focused on the world outside the window, brow furrowed in deep thought.

“Yes, John.” Dorian responded curtly and unconvincingly.

John had become quite adept at reading Dorian’s moods; he could tell by the android’s silence punctuated by the occasional disco lights that Dorian was poring over the data to try and find answers, and he also knew that he was probably more emotional about this case than he might normally have been because of the state of the BND.  Without ever trying to be too obvious about it, John kept a close watch on Dorian’s emotional state.  He told himself that it was purely professional, that he had to make sure his department-issued partner was not exhibiting any abnormal behavior, given the history of the DRNs.  He told himself it was not because he cared about this synthetic skin-covered hunk of electronics and steel, filled with a synthetic soul that sometimes seemed more real than any other soul that he had ever encountered.  He told himself that it wasn’t because he knew that if Dorian was having a bad day that he was going to have a bad day, too.  He denied the tightness he felt in his chest when the DRN was upset, blue eyes piercing into his own fragile soul from under a furrowed robot brow.  He told himself again, and often, that it wasn’t because he cared about him. 

Which, of course, he did.

“Okay,” John started in to break the tension and pull Dorian out of his silence.  “So, we’ve got a break-in but nothing readily identifiable as missing, reported by an anonymous tip over Darknet, and a beat-up robot out of juice currently sitting in the off-position at Rudy’s.  Am I missing anything?  Oh, and a warehouse owner who happens to be on another continent.  By the way, have you made any attempt to contact him?  Dorchester, I mean?  Has he been notified?”

“The break-in was reported by an anonymous person on a secure line,” Dorian responded, cheek fluttering blue with the data stream. “With nothing immediately identifiable as missing, I considered the possibility that maybe who ever broke in wasn’t looking to steal something but to hurt someone, namely Dorchester. If that is the case, then contacting Dorchester directly might have put him in some sort of danger if someone was monitoring his com.  I sent him an encrypted message that says that there is a problem with his return flight from London and that he needs to call in to make arrangements.  The number I listed is a secure line that I have forwarded to myself.  When he calls I’ll patch him to you and you can tell him about the break in, but if anyone tries to tap the line, they’ll hear a prerecorded outgoing apology message from British Airways.”

John raised his eyebrows and pulled down the corners of his mouth, nodding. “Dorian, I am impressed! That is quite a… quite a plan you’ve concocted there…”

Dorian grinned softly for a moment, a pleased look on his face, before worry settled back over his brows again.

“Where’d you come up with that one? Old case file?”

“I saw it in a movie.”

“Of course you did.” They rode in silence for a moment before John continued, mostly thinking outloud.  “That is an interesting idea, though; I mean about the motive.  Maybe someone broke in there not to steal something but to try and kill Dorchester.  Or stash something in there for safe keeping.”

“I think that he broke in and stashed himself,” Dorian pronounced quietly.

“Impossible.  He’s in London.”

“No, not Dorchester.  The BND.  I think that he found himself in trouble and escaped from somewhere or someone or something and hid, running out of power with no way to recharge.  He might have been in there hiding on that shelf to escape danger.”

“Escape danger?  Like, he was being held captive? How do you know he wasn’t the one trying to kill someone or steal something?  He’s made for ‘secret missions,’ right?”  John steadied the steering wheel with his good knee while he made air quotes around ‘ _secret missions_ .’  He hated playing the  _What If?_ game without all the facts in front of him, but he did have to wonder; regardless of the model type, androids were not cheap.  Why would one get clearly mistreated and then tossed?

“His eye was missing, John,” Dorian continued quietly but now looking pointedly at John.  “If he was trying to avoid being tracked he might have tossed it somewhere.  Like mine does, his left eye pops out and can be used independently as a camera, but it also contains a programmable tracking chip that can be used like a locator to track an android’s location.  See?”

Before John could protest Dorian had popped his left eye out and was holding it near John’s face, black hole gaping in his own face as the other eye blinked.

“Aww, c’mon, Dorian; put it away.  It’s creepy.  Seriously, Dor, stop – I get it.  Robot Lo-jack, okay? Ugh.”

Dorian suppressed a grin and popped his left eye back in, wiggling it perfectly back into place.

“So, you think that the bot…”

“BND,” Dorian corrected.

“Right, sorry, BND, got into some trouble, ditched the eyeball, went AWOL, broke into a warehouse and stashed himself for safe keeping.”   _‘Yeah, and maybe Pa left the barn door open and the horse got out,’_ John thought to himself.  “Look, this is all speculation at this point.  Whatever it is, someone is bound to come looking for him once we wake him up.  We’ll find out who he’s registered to and then we will go from there.”

“Do you think that he’s hiding from someone?”

“Who knows, Dorian.  Like I said, Rudy will fix him up, charge him up, turn him on, and then you can ask him yourself.  C’mon, let’s go get noodles, I’m starving.  Oh, and if you don’t mind, try and keep all your body parts installed and where they’re supposed to be,” John made a vague gesture towards Dorian keeping his eyes on the road. “I’d like to try and keep what’s left of my appetite intact until we get there.” 

John flipped on his turn signal and made a left into traffic.  Dorian looked out the window as they sped along and bubbled his lips contemplatively.


	6. Chapter 6

A subtle blue holographic outline glowed a few inches above the BND-model android as Rudy lazered delicately at wires and connections in the hollowed eye socket.  On the surface, the BND had appeared pretty badly beaten up, but once he started examining him closely, Rudy had discovered that the majority of the physical damage was relatively superficial and fixable.  There had been several areas of torn skin on his chest and on the back of the arms (defensive wounds, as if he’d been in a fight), and one spot between his wrist and forearm where he had extracted some gravel, but overall the BND’s condition had turned out to look much worse than it really was.  It was the dirt that was so alarming, but after several days’ work, the bot had begun to clean up nicely, and Rudy was pleased.  Once the wires and other mechanics had been checked and replaced, Rudy had meticulously cleaned and patched the broken skin by re-sealing the torn and split areas with the same hyper-conductive polymer that was used specifically to repair the skin of the MXs.  The polymer would seal the skin lacerations which would then actually “heal” seamlessly by adhering itself back to itself.  It was a marvelous technology, and Rudy worked with the patience and precision of a surgeon to smooth out the patched areas so that they would be seamless and water tight once the BND was back up and running.  It had taken several days, but he had cleaned each of the damaged areas and then patched each one. Despite the spot cleaning, there was so much dust from the warehouse (and who knows what else) that the BND would need to be totally cleansed in the wet/dry station once he was water tight.

Nearly everything was fixed and Rudy was down to the most notable and tedious repair: the eye replacement.  Rudy sang quietly to himself as he worked.

 

_Someone saved my life tonight, Sugar Bear…_

_Y’almost had your hooks in me, didn'tja dear…_

 

While most of the connections for the eye replacement had been the same in the BND as they would be in a DRN, there were still several tiny movable brackets that were slightly different from model to model, so Rudy worked to adjust the housing ever-so-slightly so that the after-market DRN eye would fit perfectly and toggle back and forth but still be ejectable to use as a camera.

 

_You nearly had me roped and tied…_

Once the connects were ready, Rudy sat up and stretched to relieve his back, eyes fixed all the while at the android on his workstation.  As he moved gently to pop and relieve the bones in his neck, he reflexively touched the grounding pad to discharge any built up static.  It was overkill but still a healthy habit.  For safety and to avoid static build-up, Rudy had tethered himself to the bot with an anti-static strap which discharged any built-up electricity that might be effectively generated as a byproduct of even the simplest movements required just to do the work.  Basically, the strap was a device that tethered him directly to the android, thereby creating a symbiotic relationship between him and the bot.  Any charge created was shared between the two of them so no accidental static discharge could occur and be transferred from Rudy to the bot, whereby undoing hours of work with a simple but terrifying BZZZT.  Rudy’s mantra was _no discharge equals no damage_ , and he had often mused to himself that it was good advice on and off the clock.

_Altar-bound, hypnotized_

_Sweet freedom whispered in my ear_

_You're a butterfly…_

Rudy gently lifted the eye out of the fitted grey foam where it rested and turned it iris up.  He bent back over the bot, gingerly pushing the skin back from around the ocular opening with the flat of his thumb and popped the eye in, pressing lightly but firmly till he heard the tell-tale click.

It was in. 

He stood back from the table and slid the lighted magnification helmet he wore up over his slightly damp fringe to rest on the top of his head and admired his work, arms akimbo.

_And butterflies are free to fly_

_Fly away, high away, bye bye_

 

He continued singing to himself as he connected the bot to the charger and clicked it on with a barely audible whir.  His workstation was disheveled but it could wait until tomorrow. As he gathered his things and slid his arms into his overcoat, he surveyed the lab, bathed in the streetlight streaming in through the upper-level stained glass windows. He'd spent the better part of the week and some nights after hours, repairing and tinkering with the parts (till nearly sun-up on one occasion) and he was overdue for a cold beer, a hot shower, and a warm bed.  The coveralls that the BND were wearing had been torn, so he’d relinquished them to a corner and covered him respectfully with a plain cotton sheet; as he clicked off the lights and powered down the screens he made a mental note to bring in a spare shirt from his own closet.  He’d have to remember to message John and Dorian about bringing him in a spare pair of trousers, maybe some socks and shoes. He paused for a moment, frowning; really, what would be the point? They’d be sending the bot back to whomever he was registered to and that would be that.  Oh well.  At least he would be dressed and respectable-looking while in his care.

Rudy popped on his fedora and locked the door, depositing the keys in his coat pocket.  Tomorrow, while the BND was still off-line, he would run the last diagnostics to make sure that all of the repaired connections were in place and functioning properly so that when he came back on line everything would be working properly.  He hailed the lone taxi lighting up the night, and as it slowed to halt in front of the lab, he took one last look at the quiet, almost-peaceful lab and lowered himself into the back of the cab.  Tomorrow would be telling.


	7. Chapter 7

“Did you bring the trousers?”

John and Dorian entered the lab to find a nearly-giddy Rudy shifting his weight lightly from foot to foot with excitement, fingers thrumming tip to tip in anticipation.  Despite last night’s late departure, Rudy had barely slept and had arrived back at the lab early to start running tests on the BND.  He had spent several hours that morning and into the afternoon running as many tests as he could with the BND still in the off position and everything appeared to be sound.  Now, the moment of truth loomed.  

“And a few other things, just in case,” Dorian responded, lifting John’s spare gym bag.

“Ta, brilliant. According to the literature he’s exactly 6’ tall, and obviously he’s built narrow like me, so my shirts will fit him but my trousers would be high waters…  SO!”  Rudy clasped his hands together and continued, “Obviously on such short notice I did not have BND parts, but, given the circumstances, I did the best that I could.  Are you ready?”

“…and you’re sure you don’t want an MX in here?  I mean, you know… just in case he’s… volatile?”  Dorian cocked his head to cast an incredulous stare at John as if to say ‘ _An MX? …what about me, idiot?_ ’ and started to speak but John cut him off, saying, “No offense, Dorian; I just don’t trust that this…BND…is going to wake up smiling and singing about happiness and sunshine and buttercups.”

“No, I’ll keep the activation stick handy and if there are any issues, I will engage the kill switch.  And with the three of us here,” Rudy looked pointedly at the DRN with a look that said he trusted him with his well-being, “honestly, I really don’t foresee an issue.  I mean, this android was developed and refined by the British Secret Service; even if he is going to kill you, he’ll likely make a nice cuppa and have some conversation first, so… right, then.”

Rudy gently extended the activation stick to the BND’s left ear and touched it gently.  “Arise,” he whispered quietly, mostly to himself.

The BND’s eyes popped open and his whole face changed, everything springing to life all at once, like a person starting out of a bad dream.  Amber LED lights lit up the BND’s cheek and his sculpted brows jumped towards his hairline, reminding John of the first time that he had activated Dorian.  The BND opened his mouth and filled his synthetic lungs with a sharp intake of air.  Dorian, John, and Rudy postured themselves in cautious stances, Dorian with one arm out and palm flexed back like a barricade in front of John, the other hovered over the butt of his weapon, ready to draw and fire or stun at a nanoseconds notice.  The BND sat up slowly, eyes still opened wide, and scrunched up his forehead and popped his jaw wide and to the side, like a swimmer trying to rid his ear of water.

He blinked a few times, and suddenly drew himself up as tall as he could be while still seated, his back ramrod-straight and bare chest shining where the sheet had slipped to gather in creases at his waist.  He stared at his arms, now outstretched in front of him,  scanning the skin and lingering over areas where Rudy had mended it with the polymer, then scanned back down at his chest as he slowly slid his hands down the flat plane of his mid section.  He touched his hands lightly to his temples and blinked again, eyes scanning slowly from left to right, his own steely almost-gray-blue eye flecked with greens and amber hues contrasting sharply against the electric blue DRN eye that now shone out of his left socket.  As his eyes roamed they lighted on John and glanced to Dorian and then to Rudy and then, suddenly, his body language shifted visibly and with a slight contraction of his core and a barely noticeable head shake, he was as composed as if he had been making small talk during a theatre intermission.  He turned to Rudy first and extended his hand.

“Hello,” he said in a deep baritone British accent, rumbling out of his chest like honey-covered velvet, “My name’s Ben.  It is a pleasure to meet you.  I do hope that I haven’t inconvenienced you in any way.”

Rudy shook the outstretched hand silently, mouth agape, as he peered at the bot and cataloged his handiwork in motion, staring into the eyes.  Ben looked then to John and Dorian, extending his hand again.

“Hello. I’m Ben; It is a pleasure to meet you,” he said again, nodding politely to them both. 

Dorian was the first to speak.

“Hey, Ben; I’m Dorian.” Dorian smiled one of his perfect I’m-one-of-the-good-guys smiles and Ben returned the grin with a handshake and an equally warm and delightful British-Airways-First-Class-steward smile, saying, “Good afternoon, Dorian.  It is such a pleasure to meet you.  Will you tell me, please, where I am?”

Dorian smiled, his hand still holding Ben’s, and his cheek danced blue; Ben’s answered in kind in amber, and it was clear to Rudy and John that they were trading information, likely coordinates, dates, times, temperature, and the identities of those present.

As John watched the exchange, a feeling began to creep through him at the thought of the two androids telegraphing communication wordlessly one to the other that he didn't like; it was not entirely unlike jealousy, so before he could think too closely on it, he cleared his throat and started to speak. 

"Okay, Bond, can you… "

"I beg your pardon, sir; actually, it is Ben."

“Yes, Ben, whatever.  Sorry.  Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?  Who you’re registered to?  Why you might have been in a warehouse full of random tech that got broken into?” 

Dorian let go of Ben’s hand as he frowned at John, saying, “Please excuse my partner.  He can be a bit gruff on the outside, but really he’s just malcontent and grumpy on the inside.  Ben, John and I found you at a warehouse over near the river and you were totally powered down with no reserves.  You looked pretty rough when we found you (the blue lights sparkled again as Dorian pushed an image to Ben that chased the grin off of his face).  Can you remember why you may have been there?”

The BND blinked for a moment like he was trying to recall a memory that was locked behind a closed door.  “I… d-d-don’t know,” he stuttered, eye glitzing for a moment; he continued, “I am registered to Widmer Bretherton, 41 Spratling Street, Ramsgate, Kent CT12, UK…” he volunteered, more clearly but still cautious.

John started to ask the BND another question when Dorian stopped him, hand flexed with flared fingers in front of John at chest level to pause his thought.

“Ben, again, I apologize for the rudeness of my partner; we are going to need to ask you some questions, but perhaps you should get cleaned up and dressed first.”

Dorian picked up John’s duffle and the dress shirt of Rudy’s and turned to them and said, “Rudy, I’m taking Ben to the wet dry station to get cleaned up and dressed.”

The BND rose, white sheet slipping slightly till he pressed it to his hip to steady it before it hit the floor.

“Uh, sure mate; there are towels in the W/D and he can change in there.” 

 As soon as Dorian and Ben were out of sight, John’s phone buzzed.  He glanced down to see that it was a text from Dorian on a secure line.

_John, I g-mapped the address that Ben gave us and there’s nothing there.  It’s a field.  The address is a fake._

_-Dorian_

Before John could respond (it always annoyed him that the DRNs and MXs could text ten times faster than he could, so that by the time he was halfway through composing his text, Dorian would have sent four more.  ‘ _Life with Robot_ ,’ or, ‘ _Robot, robot, robot. Fuck.’_ he often thought to himself) his phone buzzed again.

 

_Also, I've done a search of the name Widmer Bretherton, and although quite a few come up, there is an 87% statistical probability based on cross referencing and relationality of data that the name is a fake as well.  Widmer is a type of bourbon made in Bretherton, Kentucky.  It’s a fake name from a bottle, man._

_-Dorian_

 

“Great. A robot with amnesia and a fake registration.  Rudy, we’re going to take the BND to the precinct for…questioning… and I’m sure there’ll be a ton of paperwork that we’ll need to do on top of this…” John growled the last part out, rolling his eyes slightly.

“Okay.  I really would like to run a few more tests on him, make sure that nothing is  broken internally.  I can see more now that he’s not – you know – off.  And listen, mate; I did some more reading up on these models this morning, articles and such, and these bots are  _notoriously_ charming.  You know how Dorian was made to feel but built to be a police officer?  Well, imagine our friend Ben here was made to charm but built to be a spy.  Lumicorps, the same company that built the DRNs, built the original prototype for the BNDs and sold the design to the British Secret Service.  They – enhanced the design – to more specifically suit their needs.”

"Got it.”

 “Just…be careful.”

 “Gosh,” John said with just a hint of sarcasm, “that seems to be the lesson of the week around here, doesn't it?  Geez la-weez, what is taking them so long…?” 

John’s voice trailed off as he looked up to see Dorian and Ben gliding down the stairs, making quiet conversation and laughing, no, giggling, and smiling at each other like they were best friend from the same Girl Scout Troop.  Ben was finally squeaky clean and dressed in Rudy’s crisp white shirt which fitted him perfectly (albeit it a titch on the tight side across the chest where the buttons strained ever-so-slightly against the placket) and John’s flat-front grey woolen trousers that he’d dug out of the back of his closet.  John had intended to donate them anyway because they were slightly ill-fitting on him now (the lining clung to his synthetic leg in a way that clenched his teeth like the thought of nails across a chalkboard and he couldn't stand wearing them) and he rarely ever had any cause to wear anything other than jeans or cargos.  Incidentally, they had no right to look as perfect on the BND as they did but there they were, hugging every curve, and making him look… Well, gorgeous and fit. 

_'Ro_ _bot, robot, robot.  Fuck.’_ John reminded himself again.

The bot wore the same black sturdy work boots that he had been wearing when they found him, but now they were cleaned off and shined to perfection, the tops tucked under the wool of the trousers.

_‘Great; welcome to a day of ride-along hell, now featuring The Toaster Twins,’_ John thought to himself as the smiling bots approached. He fought to suppress the near-panic that he was sure was written all over his face and turned to Rudy, saying, “On second thought, Rudy, maybe you should come with us.  You know, just in case.  You might be able to help us.”

‘… _and it will be nice not to be out numbered 2 to 1_ ,’ He finished silently to himself.

“Great! I’ll get my coat!” Rudy didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was thrilled to be coming along.  He loved the lab, but he always felt like getting out was an adventure.

John retrieved a tiny pill from the dispenser he kept stashed in his inside front pocket and popped it waterlessly with a quick swallow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...the best part of waking up... are fingers in your cup!" I want that on a mug with a pic of Dorian warming up John's coffee.


	8. Chapter 8

John tromped into the bullpen, Dorian, Ben, and Rudy in tow.  Dorian seemed to be walking a touch taller, as he rounded the corner, drawing himself up straighter than usual, if that was even possible.  It might have been John’s imagination, but since he had just survived the longest ride in the history of the force from the few blocks it was from Rudy’s lab to the precinct proper, he didn't put it past himself to be hallucinating mildly. 

Ben sauntered in behind Dorian, arms and legs swinging ever so slightly as he walked.  He was sure on his feet, perfectly balanced, and he moved like a dancer.  There was nothing stiff or typically robotic about his movements.  He was fluid, stepped lightly, and it looked as if at any moment he could flex his arms up to touch at the elbows and kick into the air and effortlessly execute a perfect triple lutz in mid stride.  Rudy followed behind him, watching his movements and studying his articulating limbs with scientific curiosity.  John tried to focus on the case and not get completely caught up in the ridiculousness of this handsome mystery bot and his suddenly self-conscious partner.

It sort of didn’t help that as they walked through the bullpen, John maneuvering himself smoothly down the few steps despite the prosthetic, that he caught Maldonado staring at the BND with a look that went beyond professional curiosity, eyebrows risen to her hairline.  Valerie, caught off guard, looked up from the celo file she’d been studying and nearly dropped it, mouth agape.  The BNDs hair had dried into a tousle of loose golden amber curls, just this side of messy but definitely effective.  ‘ _Real human hair_ ,’ Rudy mused. 

As he moved to walk past her, Maldonado stilled Rudy by touching his arm and glancing up at him, eyes set but silent, searching his face for answers.

“I’ll catch up,” Rudy called.

John led Dorian and Ben past the stares and filed them into the Interrogation Room 5 and shut the door.  Two pairs of eyes (one cerulean blue pair and one mismatched set) stared at him expectantly.  John walked to the side of the table opposite of Ben and sat, looking at him intensely.

“Ben…” John started, not sure where to begin, and the BND cut him off.

“Am I in some sort of trouble?  I mean, other than the obvious?” A tiny grin ghosted over the cupid’s-bow lips and he winked the DRN replacement eye for emphasis as he spoke the word ‘obvious.’

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.  Ben, what can you tell me about the warehouse?  About the break-in? Why were you there?  Were you active when it happened?  And, where do you….live?” John wrestled with what to ask the BND, but as usual, he felt the need to take the lead on the interrogation. A tiny part of him knew that Dorian might be able to ask the right questions, bot-to-bot and all, but he kept on.  Ben was unphased.

“Honestly, I do not know.  Since you… well, Rudy…activated me, I have been trying to recall… anything… about what might have happened.  I am certain that Dorian can affirm that I am telling the truth.”

Amber checkered Ben’s cheek as did blue on Dorian’s, and he nodded slightly.  Ben paused as Rudy entered Interro 5 to join them at the table before continuing.

“My internal memory storage contains an enormous amount of innate data that is stored actually inside of me.  Much of the information stored there has been with me since before the first moment that I was ever activated.   My programs, my subroutines, the code strings that enable my basic existence, are continued therein.  However, my short-term memory and my developed ‘remembrances’ –memories I have made from experiences that I have had since my activation -- are uploaded and stored on a cloud so I have unlimited memory capacity and try as I might…” He paused, narrowing his eyes as the amber LED lights once again dotted the side of his face, “…I am unable to access the data.  It is as if someone …changed …the passcode on my personal storage locker and so although I have a vague idea of what is in there, I cannot access it or perform any daily updates.  So, for example, I know that I am quite proficient in playing the piano, but I cannot recall any songs.  Typically my model is used by the British Government for special missions and covert operations and I have no recollection of any mission that I have ever completed.  Amongst myriad other things, my capabilities include cooking and meal preparation -- I cannot recall a single meal that I have ever made, and although I know that I am registered to a Widmer Bretherton…  I cannot honestly say for certain that we have ever met.  I have to assume that we must have, but… I know nothing about him.  Dorian mentioned that there was a relatively high statistical probability that he might not even really exist, and I have no information either way.  It’s rather an odd feeling, really…” He trailed off, eyes on his hands.

Dorian had been looking at the BND while he listened to him talk but upon hearing his last, his eyes strayed to John’s face.  Dorian had so many memories that would be painful to lose, but the idea of losing memories of John left him with an empty feeling that seemed to radiate from behind his chest plate.  Also, to not know ones purpose or to whom you were registered was the robot equivalent of being an orphan.  Dorian didn't typically fidget, but as the thoughts buzzed through him, he absent-mindedly ran the palm of his hand across his chest over the spot where he felt the emptiness well-up in him.

Just then Maldonado opened the door to the interrogation room and leaned in.

John started, “Captain, this is the BND that we found at the warehouse.  Now, as I said earlier, other than the B&E and the fact that he was pretty well beat to shit, there didn't seem to be anything amiss at the wa…”

Maldonado cut John off. 

“Yes, Rudy just mentioned. John, a word.  In my office. Now.”

John followed Maldonado into her office and when the door shut behind them she touched one of the solid gray circles on the glass, turning the transparent office walls to an opaque milky grey.

“John, what is the meaning of this? First of all, I am less than thrilled that this …mystery android… is here in the middle of our precinct, strolling through the bullpen.  From what I understand from Rudy, these bots are…spies?  Do you know how potentially dangerous that could be? We have a lot to lose out there.” She gestured an arm in the general direction of the bullpen before re-crossing them over her chest.

“As long as we have this BND in our possession, he is the responsibility of the police department, and as long as he is the responsibility of the police department, he is to be under your personal supervision.  Understood?” She paused, eyes unwavering from John’s in calculated strength to enforce the seriousness of the words, and then continued with a grimace.  “There are hundreds of reasons why this random android might have been in that warehouse, but now that he’s here, and until we find out whose he is and what he is, he is your responsibility and you are under direct orders to give him close supervision.  He is not to be left alone. Again, do I make myself clear?”

John wondered if the day could get any better.  “Constant supervision?  Like, around the clock?”  Ugh, it was too much, but he could feel from Maldonado’s steady gaze that any objections would be thwarted. 

John sighed. “What about Rudy? Can we just take him back to Rudy’s lab?  Rudy can... supervise him (he emphasized with just a hint of sarcasm) and monitor him there.”   

“John, this model of android was specifically developed for espionage and we have no history on this particular unit yet.  This robot could potentially be very dangerous, so you and Dorian need to watch him constantly and be on high alert.”

“What about overnight?  I’m not taking him to my apartment.  I never go all the way on the first date,” he quipped with a boyish grin in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Maldonado lowered her eyes for a moment, lips breaking into the tiniest smile as she gazed at her desktop before locking eyes with John again and continuing straight faced.  “John, I’m not asking.  I’m telling.”

Maldonado was quiet for a moment and then she spoke again.  John knew that when the captain was angry she yelled, but when she was at her most serious, her voice dropped down to just above a breathy whisper, as it did when she spoke again.

“John. I really need you to take the lead on this.  There’s more.  Dorchester, the tech dealer that owned the warehouse, is dead.”

John’s exasperation dissolved into confusion, and he narrowed his eyes. “Wait, what?”

“Yes.  Dead.  Found dead today in London.” 

“How?”

“Housekeeping found him in the bathtub of his hotel room.  Blunt force trauma to the head.  I got the call from Scotland Yard just before you walked in.”

“Freak accident? Strange… coincidence?” He trailed off, thoughts whirring through his head. 

“Not likely, considering the DNA bomb exploded at the scene.”  Maldonado was quiet again and let her words sink in.  “John, this makes this relatively uneventful B&E at a warehouse officially an international incident and a murder.  And the only lead we have on this case, a case that I was hoping would be a simple open-and-shut, is a mystery android that you guys dragged home to base camp, cleaned and repaired (with official police resources and materials, I don’t need to remind you), and dressed.  Quite well, I might add.”

Maldonado sidled to the glass wall, arms still crossed over her chest, and touched the grayed circle, fading the glass from milky opaque back to clear.  Across the bullpen in Interrogation Room 5 sat the BND, legs crossed casually at the knee, still chatting with Dorian as Rudy looked on.  John watched Stahl sneak the occasional glance away from her work station to the interrogation room to sneak curious glances at the BND and then glance back at her holoscreen with a pretty amused smile and a tiny side-to-side head shake.   _‘Okay, so he was handsome,_ ’ John thought to himself.  _‘C’mon, people; haven’t you ever seen a good-looking robot before? Down, Girl.’_

John was silent.

“You and I both know that this whole incident has got to be merely the surface of something bigger.  We are on high alert here, John, and this…BND…is the only lead.  I need you to look after it and also potentially disable it if something suspect happens.”

“Dorian and I can take it down with brute force if it starts to act cute, but if there’s a malfunction, Rudy’s the one you’ll need on standby.”

“Fine.  Then it looks like you’ll all be bunking down together tonight.  I’ll leave it up to you figure out where.  Also, take MX-43 #681 with you as back up.” She softened for a moment, adding, “Whatever supplies you need I’ll personally make sure you have brought to wherever you plan to be tonight.  Just let me know.  And keep me posted on any other leads; if any special situations arise, notify me.  I’m not trying to be unreasonable, but safety is my primary concern.”  Maldonado opened the door to the office, holding it ajar and looking expectantly at Kennex.  The conversation was over.

John set his jaw and pushed out a breath through pursed lips, exiting in long strides to make his way back towards the interrogation room across the bullpen. 

_'Fuck.’_

_'_ _Why couldn't this British can opener just stay in the MX charging facility overnight?’_

Rationally, he knew why.  He couldn't really fault Maldonado for being overly cautious; it had only been a few weeks since the Danica incident and she was loathe to keep unknown bots at the precinct or in evidence for fear of break-ins, thefts, and property damage -- or worse.  John knew that there was too much at stake.  Still, now he had to decide – his place?  With Dorian, Rudy, 681, and the BND, for an overnight?  Or the lab on a foldout?  Neither option sounded like his idea of a stellar night, and John figured that if he slept in his own bed, even if it was fitful, he wouldn't wake up with a stiff back and sore leg, so for a moment he opted for his place.  After a second thought, John realized that three droids and Rudy at his apartment could actually be the Third Circle of Hell (not to mention they’d have to schlep two additional charging pods over there – he already had one for Dorian for those not-so-rare occasions when Dorian picked him up at the bar and drove him home) so reluctantly he opted for the lab.  He had a sleeping bag somewhere so he’d stop by the apartment and grab the necessities before heading back to the lab.  _‘…starting to get a little crowded in the squad car_ ,’ he made a mental logistical note.  John considered another pill and scowled, knowing it would do nothing to save his mood.  As he silently cataloged what he’d need to procure from his apartment before the Maldonado-mandated lock-in at the lab, he made a mental note to add the pocket-sized silver flask of whiskey he kept stashed in the liquor cabinet to the list.  ‘ _Shit; may as well bring the whole bottle,_ ’ he determined. 

John walked back into the interrogation room and shut the door behind him.  He took a deep breath and pushed it out through pursed lips, hands on his hips.

“So all your info files are on lock down and you wouldn't know Bretherton from a hole in the wall.  Rudy, is that something that you might be able to work on?  See if you can access this cloud so Ben here can update and shed some light on all of this?”           

“Well, I will certainly try, sure.”  Before John could speak again, Rudy added, “However, there is one very important potential clue that we may be overlooking; something so significant it is right under our noses.  Well, right above, actually.” 

Rudy locked eyes with Ben and nodded towards the BND’s face, saying, “The eye -- the missing eye.  Ben’s eye.  It emits a signal, like a GPS, and can be used as a tracking locator.  When the eye is installed it can be used to track an androids location coordinates and can also be used as an orienteering device so that a lost android can… find their way home.  If his missing eye is just lying around singularly somewhere, than it is, I’m sure, powered off at this time with no way to charge, so no signal, BUT!  Remember when we were tracking that sexbot…er, Vanessa… a few months back and we tracked her first activation point by determining the location of her first software update?  We may be able to complete a similar process with Ben’s eye, here.  If we cannot find a precise current location, at least we may be able to find out where it was the last time that the eye was installed and emitted a global positioning signal and then go from there.  Also, I would like to run some additional tests, if I may be so bold, Ben; understanding what has happened may aid in unlocking some more of your memory.  Or at least reveal why it’s locked.”

“Well, per the captain’s orders…”  John, trailed off, rolling his eyes upwards for a moment with a head shake before continuing, “Dorian and I are on 24-hour watch.  Of Ben.  With you.  At the lab.”

Rudy clapped his hands together softly, unable to hide his delight, saying, “all right!  Party at Rudy’s place! Can we have martinis?”

“I make an excellent martini,” Ben chimed in. “I make them shaken…”

John cut him off, raising his hand and flexing his fingers.

“Don’t say it.  Just… Don’t.”

Dorian stifled a grin, adding, “C’mon, John.  Aren't you excited that we all get to spend the night together?”  Dorian raised his eyebrow infinitesimally in a way that rode a fine line between teasing and flirting.  John touched his teeth together, willing himself not to dwell on his robot partner’s expression.  This was not the time. 

“Yeah, thrilled. C’mon, I have to stop by my apartment.”    

As they walked back out through the bullpen, Detective Paul chided him as he sauntered passed.

“Kennex.  What, are you starting a boy band, or something? ‘Johnny Pathetic and the Synthetics’?  Why don’t you and Mr. Blue-Light-Special here take your new best friend out and go and look for something that you may or may not be able to find because you have no idea what you’re looking for.  Oh, and try not to get shot again.”

John scowled and started to retort Paul and Dorian stepped between them, locking eyes with John.  “It’s not worth, it John.  C’mon, let’s go.  Besides; Paul’s just jealous ’cause he wasn't cute enough to be in the band.”  Dorian grinned again at John, disarming him, and they strolled out together, Rudy and Ben in tow. 


	9. Chapter 9

The cruiser was crowded.

John drove, Rudy rode shotgun, and three androids sat shoulder to shoulder in the back seat – Dorian, Ben, and MX-43 #681.  Dorian had reluctantly conceded his front seat position to Rudy and sat staring at John in the rearview mirror.  Although Dorian’s face could be quite expressive, John knew that Dorian’s mostly blank stare with a slight narrowing of the eyes meant that he was just this side of ticked, and John did his best to telegraph back a look of apology with a nod towards the passenger seat. Anyway, it was a short ride and they’d be there in no time.  As if on automatic pilot, the cruiser pulled into the familiar charging station and John cut the engine.

“You guys need anything?  Maxie?  You good? ” John asked into the rear view mirror, locking eyes with Dorian.

Dorian glanced out the window, still silent. As John excited the vehicle, the nearly blue-black MX spoke.

“BND, you must accompany Detective Kennex.”

Now it was John’s turn to look perturbed.  “What are you talking about?”

“Captain Maldonado has ordered that you administer constant supervision over the BND.  If the BND does not accompany you I will be forced to file an incident report with Captain Maldonado.”

John huffed, recollecting why his last partner had flown out of the passenger-side door of the cruiser while it was traveling at a high rate of speed on the freeway. 

“Fine.  C’mon Ben.  Looks like it’s you and me. Don’t touch anything.”

Ben climbed out of the backseat of the cruiser, seemingly happy to oblige, and Dorian’s eyes twinkled, still narrowed.  His cheek lit up as he watched John and Ben enter the convenient store under the mechanical chimes, and he quickly exited the back seat to follow in behind them.

Inside, John was scoping out a sugary snack while Ben scanned a rack of mag downloads, lingering over the women’s section; glossy, wasteful paper magazines were rarely ever sold anymore (unless it was a special edition or a publication that was made to look vintage) so the rack was a series of holoscreens that projected images of magazine ‘covers’; each image had a scanner beneath it where you held your celo device up to download the issue information.  Of course,  Dorian could read whatever he wanted online and also could even buy the issue and have the info uploaded directly into his files if he so chose, but he preferred to read them in the human way, often downloading them onto John’s celo, much to John’s chagrin.  ‘…you can read this stuff online, Dorian,’ John had said once, to which Dorian had retorted, ‘… I know, but I like the quizzes – it helps me know how to deal with you.’ Ironically enough, John had a tendency to scroll through the rags absent-mindedly (like during his private morning bathroom routine); he had a love hate relationship with the vapid women’s publications that Dorian loved to load him up with.  Before deleting them off the celo he’d scroll through them, but always made sure to do it out of sight of his DRN partner and never at the precinct, or he’d never hear the end of the ripping.

Mona looked up from the counter, eyes roving over the BND, and she started a low hmm of appreciation.

“Mm, mm, MM!  WHO is your friend?”

John mostly ignored the exchange as he shoveled several powdered donuts into a bag from a display; Dorian spoke, saying, “Mona, this is Ben; Ben, Mona.”

Ben, as graciously as if he were meeting a royal princess, gave a short nod from his head and shoulders and said in deep and luxurious voice, “Good afternoon, Mona; it is my pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, honey; the pleasure is all mine, I promise you.”

From behind the exchange, John held high the paper sack of donuts in one hand and wiggled his bitcoin stick between the thumb and forefinger of the other, head cocked in annoyance with an expression that said, ‘ _can I pay now?_ ’ and Mona, eyes never leaving the BND, said, “No charge.  You just keep bringing your good looking friends by and you can have all the donuts you want.”


	10. Chapter 10

As they entered, the lights in John’s airy apartment flicked on and he tossed the key fob to the cruiser into the glass bowl by the door.  Before the MX could cross the threshold from the common-area hallway outside into his apartment, he instructed it.

“Max, be a doll and guard the door, wouldja?  Make sure no one …unauthorized… comes in.”

With that he slammed the door on the open-mouthed MX standing in the hallway before he could make any manner of robotic protest.

Rudy stood sort of awkwardly in the doorway till John gestured to a moderne-looking grey swivel chair and ottoman in the middle of the sunny main room.            

“Uh, have a seat, Rudy.  Sorry for the mess,” he winced at the unmade bed.  “I’ll only be a minute.  I just have to grab a couple things.  Dorian, uh… why don’t you take Ben into the…I don’t know, just hang out for a minute.”

John ambled into his closet, the tiniest twinge of discomfort shooting up on his leg.  The charge was growing low and the leg was stiff and starting to cause aches across John’s hips and lower back.  He stuffed some clothes and a tightly-wound bedroll into a bag and hoisted it over the shoulder of his good leg to keep the weight off of the other side.  As he started towards the kitchen he heard movement in the guest bedroom.

“Hey, what are you guys do…”

John looked in to find Dorian and Ben peering over the showcase that held all of John’s trophies from his high school sports triumphs.  John felt a warmth grow in his chest as he watched his partner gesture to the shelf with a smile.  Dorian and Ben turned at the sound of John standing in the doorway.    

“What are you guys doing in here?”

Ben spoke, smiling. “Dorian and I were just admiring the accolades of your high school sports prowess, John.  Do you still play sports and run?”

John suppressed something that was closely related to a blush, and after swallowing his spit, with a small smile he couldn’t keep from escaping, he replied, “No, not in a long time. Not unless I’m being chased or the laxatives are working.  But I was fast; they called me…”

“The White Cheetah,” Dorian finished, smiling again at the trophy.

“John,” Ben cautioned, “Do you still play with the baseball?”       

The strangeness of the syntax of the remark from the BND caught him off guard, reminding him in a flash that these were robots, not just a couple of slightly abnormally-behaving guys that he was showing around his flat.

“No, I don’t play  _baseball_ anymore, either,” he said, just as the BND picked up a tattered leather baseball with a cryptic-looking signature on it from off of a three-pronged silver stand where it nestled in and amongst the trophies.  Without looking, in one fluid lightning movement, Ben chucked the ball deftly straight at John.

“Catch,” Ben whispered, with a tiny smile, eyes still cast at the floor.

In one precise and elegant movement, John dropped the bag he was carrying and caught the ball with his left hand as if by magic.  And just as masterfully as he caught it, John cradled the ball from his left hand to his right and brought his right arm back intuitively, elbow cocked at a hard angle away from his body, fingers flared behind his right ear to form the start of a beautiful throw.  It was instinct, muscle memory, and it took less than a second. 

John took a deep breath as if he had just awakened from a dream, and stared at his fist.

“Nice catch, John,” Ben’s deep baritone rumbled. “You should play with the baseball more.  It suits you.”


	11. Chapter 11

Except for the streetlight streaming in through the stained glass roof dome of the lab, faintly illuminating the equipment of Rudy’s work stations, the lab was dark.  The sun had dipped below the horizon and robot arms, heads, and torsos cast long spooky shadows, making the lab look like the set of a horror film.  John had never seen the lab so dark and was slightly relived when Rudy clicked on a lighted magnifying mirror above his desk and the screens began blinking to life.

“Right, so Ben, there is a charging pod right through doors at the end of this hall where you can charge overnight (the doors lock for added…safety and privacy); John, there is a cot you can kip on in Dorian’s room, upstairs behind the last door on the left.  681 will charge at my main workstation, but he’ll probably only need a few hours’ worth.”  Rudy lowered his voice respectfully, walking towards John and continued, “John, you can charge your leg right through there,” Rudy offered gently, gesturing towards a machine across the room.  “I’ve got an arm on the mini pod now but I’ll move it,” he said with a wink and a conspiratorial nod.

“Thanks, Rudy.” John glanced up the stairs and back at the charging station and wondered how he was going to navigate that one but figured he’d manage.  “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, mate; I have my own nest in the back.  I’ve spent… quite a few late nights here, you know?”

“Right.  Well, I’m going to go take a load off for a bit.”  The stiffness with which John moved toward the stairs went unnoticed (well, unnoticed by everyone except his eagle-eyed partner, who noticed everything, especially where it concerned John).

“All right.  I am going to try and plug in the frequency of the missing BND eye and see if I can track the last coordinates it emitted.  I will let you know what I find.”

John climbed the stairs to the upper level and headed down the hall, followed by Dorian who scanned John’s every step.   As John opened door that Rudy had indicated a faint light came on, triggered by the motion.  Dorian watched the detective drop his bag and heave himself onto the small cot that flanked the far wall, wincing in pain.

“John.  Let me help you with that.”

“Dorian, I’m fine.  I’m just a little worn out, that’s all.”

Dorian was silent for a moment and then crossed to kneel by the enormous duffle John had brought from the apartment and opened it with a loud zip.  John started to protest and launch into a lecture with the DRN about personal boundaries when the breath caught in his chest as another jolt of electric pain surged through his leg.  John felt the spasm go through his ghost leg as clearly as if someone had kicked the shin of his good leg.

“John, I can help,” Dorian said again, plainly.  “While we were at your house I grabbed the olive oil out of the kitchen and I stowed it in here. Hold still for a minute.”

Dorian rifled through the bag and pulled several items out to allow for better access as he searched, including the bottle of whiskey John had stashed at the bottom. As he set it on short table next to the cot just to get it out of the way, John grabbed it and took a long powerful swig straight out of the bottle.

“Good thinking, Dee,” he gasped, breathless as the burn trailed down his throat.

Dorian narrowed his eyes at the bottle for a second and then stood over the cot and looked down at John.  He placed the olive oil on the little table and locked eyes again with the detective.

“Dorian, what are you doing?”

“Well, nothing yet.  But I can and I will stop the pain if you will allow me.”

John felt his face flush momentarily and started to protest when another electric jolt rocked through him and he conceded. 

“Fine, just…make it quick,” he grumbled, trailing off, craning his neck towards the wall so he wouldn’t have to look.

John’s black cargos zipped off above the knee for easy access, and Dorian unzipped the pant-leg and exposed the line where flesh met cyber limb.  He slid the zipped-off trouser leg down till it bunched around the ankle and removed John’s sock and shoe.  John winced again, this time less from pain and more from the shock of the cool synthetic fingers hovering over the skin above the spot where the prosthetic connected.  Dorian’s touch was gentle and cool, yet not too soft to feel ticklish.  ‘ _These hands flipped a van,_ ’ John thought to himself silently as he felt the gentle touch.  He slipped his fingers under the fabric of what remained of the trousers and slid it upward on John’s hip so that the entire leg lay exposed.  Dorian lightly rested the fingertips of his right hand on the prosthetic just below the connection point to maintain contact while he uncapped the olive oil bottle deftly with the thumb of his left and applied several drops to the area just above the knee.  Firmly but with a gentle hand, Dorian smoothed the oil over the creases and joints of the limb and manually moved the intersecting connections back and forth till they slid more easily across each other.

Dorian spoke quietly as he massaged the oil into the depressed areas and smoothed it around, saying, “…see, that’s what hurts, John.  The moving parts stick without lubrication and cause the charge to drain more quickly and send erratic signals to your nerve endings.”

As the pain abated, John’s breathing deepened and he relaxed slightly.   He silently hoped that Dorian would stay true to his word about not scanning the most private parts of his anatomy or he would discover at that very moment that although parts of John had relaxed at Dorian’s steady touch, other parts had literally jumped with the shock of the skin-on-skin attention.

“There.  Is that better?”  Dorian recapped the bottle and slid John’s trouser leg back down from when it had been pushed up on his hip.

John swallowed and cleared his throat forcefully before he spoke to ensure that any embarrassing huskiness or breathlessness was out of his voice and finally managed, “Yes. Much.  You’re right; it was, literally, getting on my nerves.”

“It’s still running low on charge so you will need to dock it over night, but it should be much better in the morning.”

John willed the budding erection in his trousers to stand down and took another short swig of the whiskey.  After he swallowed, he studied the bottle that he held in his hand, and something clicked.

“Dorian. The whiskey.”

“Yeah, John about that; I think you've had enough.”

 “No, no, I’m talking about Widmer.  Widmer Bourbon made in Bretherton, KY.  Is that common?”

 Dorian seemed to catch on and his cheek lit up.  “It is available in several local area stores.”

 "How many that are within… a three-mile radius of the warehouse?”

 “None.  There is one that is within seven miles.”

 John knew that it was a long shot, but he had a hunch.  It could always have come from somewhere else, but at this point they had little else to go on.  “What about bars, Dorian?   See if you can find any place that…”

 Dorian was a step ahead of him.  “There are 7 bars within 1 mile of the warehouse.”

 “Any of them serve that brand of bourbon?  Widmer?”

 “Several.”

 “Well, which one is the closest?”

 “There’s a place called The Egyptian that lists Widmer on their menu; they have a rating of 4 stars…”

 “No, too fancy.  Is there a dive?  A dark seedy place with no stars?  A place you would tell me not to go to?”

 “McQuaid’s?”

 “No, not likely.  That’s the cop bar.”

 “Burnsides? On Front St?”

 “Bingo.  It’s close to the warehouse, it’s definitely seedy, and maybe who ever registered this bot to a false name sat at the bar there when they came up with it.  Frankly, I am starting to have a feeling that Dorchester is Bretherton, and he re-registered Ben to a fake identity because he was in trouble.  It might turn out to be nothing, but at least we’ll get a drink out of it. Well, I will, anyway.”  Dorian narrowed his eyes and John defended, “What? It’s after hours… Technically, I’m off the clock, and you can do your civic duty and be my DD, D…”

John grinned at his own joke and pulled the bunched trouser leg back up over the prosthetic and re-zipped it at his thigh.  He pulled the sock and shoe back on and stood, shaking his clothes out and adjusting himself slightly while bending gently at the knee a few times.  He was immanently thankful that his burgeoning hard-on had abated, yet there remained a lingering tingle that he tried not to think about.

“Thanks, Dorian.  That really did help. Alright, let’s get over there.”  John moved towards the door and Dorian stilled him, moving so that his face was right in front of John’s and locked eyes with him again. 

“John, wait.” Dorian looked stern.  “Off duty or not, if we go over there now we’ll need to take Ben with us.  Captain’s orders.”

“Shit,” John huffed breathily with an annoyed head jerk, over-emphasizing the T.

John’s mind raced through a scenario of himself and Dorian climbing out a window and down over the fire escape.  It didn’t end well.

“If we take him with us, he’ll stick out like a sore thumb.  So will you, no offense.”  By then John was striding down the hall and hefting himself down the stairs three steps at a time using the railings as parallel bars, hopping lightly on his good leg every third step.

Rudy sat at his computer work station, fingers flying over the keys in short bursts and he looked up as John and Dorian strode in.  Ben stood off to the side, eyeing Rudy’s robotic butterflies with curiosity, head bobbing slightly to the Depeche Mode thumping through Rudy’s sound system.

“Rudy, any luck tracking down that eye?”

“No, not as of yet.  It’s definitely powered off so I’m off working on plan B now to see if I can locate the position of Ben’s last GPS coordinate update while the eye was installed and powered up.  I should be able to work it out in about 30 minutes or so and then I’ll...”

John cut him off.  “Sorry to cut you off, Rudy, but Dorian and I have a possible lead that we’re going to go and follow up on, but I’m not so sure that taking Ben is…safe.  I’m definitely leaning towards leaving 681 here to avoid any urges that I may get to recycle him into a nice set of pots and pans.”  Dorian glared at him from under knit-together eyebrows, disco lights flashing.

“John; I’m messaging the Captain to get permission to leave Ben here under the supervision of 681.”

“Good luck, Dor; Maldonado was pretty adamant about…”

This time it was Dorian’s turn to interrupt.  “Approved,” he said, with the tiniest grin.

“Well, I guess now we know who the favorite is,” John drawled as they rolled out the doors towards the cruiser.


	12. Chapter 12

John huffed out a huge breath as they sped along towards the warehouse district.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dorian’s cheek flutter blue in the darkness of the cabin of the cruiser and a thought occurred to him.

“Uh, Dorian…you may want to limit the disco lights once we get inside Burnside’s.  Some of the people there may be…old fashioned, and they may not take kindly to androids. “

“Understood, man.  I will keep a low profile.”

John pulled the cruiser in slowly to the curb and parked about a half a block down from the bar, killing the engine.  They sat in silence for a moment before the detective turned to the DRN and said, “Dorian, your look screams ‘cop.’”

Dorian glanced down at himself momentarily and then back at John and answered plainly, “that’s cause I am a cop. John.”

John sighed and bit the inside of his lower lip thoughtfully before he said, “take off your jacket.” 

Dorian glanced back at John, raising his eyebrows questioningly then obliged, sliding his navy parka off and shuffling it into the back seat.

“Better?” he asked, eyebrows raised expectantly at John.

“Getting there; take your shoulder holster off and tuck your piece into your waistband.  And cover it. With your shirt.”

Dorian did, and John nodded with approval.   As they exited the car, John watched Dorian’s arms and shoulders flex through the thin fabric of his shirt as he walked, marveling at how human the movements looked and how real the muscles seemed. It wasn’t very often that he saw him without the parka on, he realized. Obviously, Dorian still looked like an android, but now he might pass for John’s...personal android.  John pushed all of the thoughts that were threatening to swim around in his mind out and focused on the task at hand as they strolled up to the orange light above the entrance.

John flashed his id at the bouncer at the door and then said, “He’s with me,” with a head tip towards Dorian.

The bouncer stepped aside and let them enter, closing the door behind him.

The interior was dark and smelled faintly of stale e-cig vapor; an aging but beefy-looking bartender loomed behind the enormous oak bar, back-lit by the flashing advertisements over the taps, sliding a towel through a glass.

Dorian, glanced around as nonchalantly as he could, surveying the patrons.  The bar was half-empty, with only a few occupied booths at the far end of the room and a couple of random clusters of people sitting and chatting at the bar.

John and Dorian slid onto a pair of bar stools and the bartender acknowledged them with a nod.

“What’ll’ya have, friend?” he asked curtly to John.

“Widmer.  Neat.  Make it a double.”

The bartender narrowed his eyes and set about to pour the drink.  As he poured, eyes never leaving the stream of brown liquid he emptied into the glass, he added, “What about you, Crankshaft?  Anything?”

Dorian didn’t hesitate and answered, “I’m good, thanks,” in a put-on slightly gruff voice.  John squeezed his lips together tightly to suppress the grin broadening in response to the bartender’s slur but filed it away in his memory banks for re-use. 

John nodded as the bartender set the glass down in front of him and lifted it to his lips for an exploratory sip.  It was much smoother than the swill he kept at home and slid easily down his throat.

“John, look.”  Dorian nodded towards one of the glowing signs behind the bar and John raised his eyes to see an advertisement for Widmer.  Underneath:  _Proudly Made in Bretherton, Kentucky._

John took a longer pull of the whiskey, nearly draining it, and looked at the bartender who had gone back to drying and stacking glasses.

“This your bar?”

“Sure is,” he answered without hesitation, checking a tumbler for spots before sliding it on to a shelf.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a guy named Charles Dorchester, would’ja?  Owns a warehouse not too far from here?”

The bartender didn’t make eye contact and kept on with his task, answering, “I don’t know anybody and I don’t know anything, friend.  The less I know the longer I live, get it?”

John nodded pensively and emptied the rest of the drink, setting the short crystal tumbler back on the counter and said, “I’ll take another and then I’ll settle up.”

The bartender poured the drink and then passed the electronic POS pad over to him.  John passed his bitcoin stick over the pad to settle up and then took a long swallow.  As he passed the pad back to the bartender, he opened his jacket slightly to reveal his badge, and said, “he’s run in to a little bit of trouble – lot of trouble, actually.  He’s dead.”  John took a final long drink and eyed the bottom of the glass before he continued, “…so if you happen to remember anything, call me at the Delta Division precinct.  Name’s Kennex.”

John and Dorian rose to leave and the bartender sighed, leaning heavily on the bar with slumped shoulders, eyes downcast. 

“Look. I don’t want any trouble.  But I know the guy.  Charlie.  Real proper; drinks the same shit you do, that’s how I knew who you was talking about.  Haven’t seen him in a while but he’s got a friend he used to meet here.  I don’t know his real name but they call him “JW.”  Limps a little bit.  J-Dub got sick a while back.  I haven’t seen either one of ‘em in weeks.  That’s all I know.  Now, thanks very much and don’t come again.”

John and Dorian rose and shuffled down the length of the bar past a slouching patron parked at the corner nursing a drink and headed out the door into the night.  As they made their way back towards the cruiser in the orange glow of the streetlamp, John tossed the keys to Dorian saying, “Here, Crankshaft.  You drive.”   He slid into the passenger side, and Dorian noted that John’s temperature was elevated and his cheeks were slightly flushed from the bourbon that coursed through his veins. John’s eyes grinned as he fastened the seatbelt, and he watched as Dorian slid into the driver side and shut the door.  Dorian turned the engine over and pulled out into the street.

“So, that was pretty much useless,” John pronounced with a huff from the passenger seat.  Dorian started to respond when his cheek sparkled and he spoke out loud, “Hey, Rudy, what’s up.  I’m putting you on the speaker, hold on.”

Dorian touched the console and Rudy’s voice came through the speakers of the cruiser.

“Did you find anything?” Rudy asked.

“Nothing major, other than the fact that Dorchester drinks expensive liquor and has a friend ‘JW’ with a limp who has also disappeared.  What about you, any luck?”

“Well, I tracked down the location of Ben’s last global positioning signal, and not surprisingly, it is Dorchester’s warehouse.  However, I did find something else interesting, and I think that you’ll find that it’s déjà vu all over again.”

Dorian and John looked at each other as Rudy continued.

“One of Ben’s software update locations, a full scan, maybe even a completely new install, was at Orillian Sapients.  Ring a bell?”

John puzzled for a moment as Dorian nodded and responded, “Yes.  The sexbots.  Jointly-owned by the now-deceased Sebastian Jones and his partner Lorenzo Shaw until it went bankrupt.”

“Precisely, Dorian.  It seems as if Ben was activated and updated at Orillian Sapients about six months ago, before the company went belly-up.  Sebastian’s surviving partner, Lorenzo Shaw, still trades in sexbots and has his own showroom.”

“Yes.  John and I went there when we were investigating those missing girls who were kidnapped to grow skin for sexbots.”

“Ugh.  Sexbots,” John murmured, glancing out the window.

Dorian eyed the detective quietly before responding to Rudy.  “Thanks Rudy.  We’re on our way back to the lab now and we’ll check out the Lorenzo Shaw Gallery tomorrow during regular business hours.”

Dorian signed off and they rode in silence for a moment before the DRN spoke, eyes locked on the road.

“John,” Dorian started quietly. “Why are you opposed to sexbots?  I seem to remember detecting an increase in your heart rate the last time we were there…”

John groaned slightly, not really wanting to get into a discussion that would ruin the pleasant low-level bourbon buzz he was enjoying and kept his eyes out the window, saying, “…’cause sexbots are slimy, Dor. Sleazy, even.”  John hoped the declaration would end the discussion.  No such luck.

Dorian kept his eyes on the road but continued. “Why?  I’m a robot, and I can have sex.  Do you think I’m slimy? Sleazy?”

John was thankful that he was not the one driving at that moment because he was sure that if he had been they would have slid off the road and into a ditch at Dorian’s last remark.

“No, Dorian.  You are definitely not slimy or sleazy.  You’re pretty noble, actually.  And although… you  _can_ have sex (once again John tried not to think too hard on it as he mouthed the words, riding his bourbon buzz) you have other functions.  You’re a cop.  You serve the public.  Protect people. Protect other cops. Sexbots are… just made for sex.  There’s no pretense.  There’s no… feeling.  Romance.  Love.  It’s a transaction.  Not to mention that it just seems like a huge waste of technology. Besides, you’re different, Dorian.  We’ve been over this.”  John was slightly loose-lipped because of the drinks and said more than he might have otherwise.

The rest of the ride was quiet; Dorian played and replayed John’s words and added them to his “John Said” tickle file while John dozed quietly in the seat.


	13. Chapter 13

“Sorry about that, mate.  Where were we?”

“Checkmate,” Ben said, amber LED lighting a maze up his cheek.  If it was possible for a robot to look pleased, this was the look.

“Ah, you’re joking.  Again?  Bugger!  Good, very good.  Good game.”  Rudy was a bit cheesed-off but outwardly good-natured about the fact that he had lost four games in a row to Ben, and Ben just grinned, clearly chuffed.  Ben’s left hand was cradled to a machine where thick teal tubes glowed between his fingers, rendering him pretty much immobile until the tests were complete.  While John and Dorian had gone to check Burnsides, Rudy had multi-tasked.  He’d kept a peripheral eye on the tracking protocol running on his desk, hooked Ben up to run a program diagnostic to look for any software glitches that might explain the memory loss, and set up the holographic chess board between the two of them so that they could play while the system checks ran their course.  They’d played four games and Rudy had lost four games.  Although Rudy didn't consider himself to be a world-class chess player, he fancied himself at least on par with the skill level of local school chess teams, and the fact that he’d lost to the BND several times in a row stung.

“Ben, I will have you know,” Rudy assured him with the quiet seriousness that made him so endearing, “that when I was a teenager I beat my chess app constantly.  Constantly,” he added twice for emphasis as he reset the holoboard.  “Once when I was on hols I played fourteen hours straight.”

The impromptu tourney all started when Ben had noticed the holochess set on a far table while Rudy was hooking him up at the fingertips to the diagnostic testing equipment and suggested a game.  One idle game to pass the time had turned into several.

“One more? Rudy, you are the most formidable opponent that I have had in quite a long while.  Well… that I can remember, anyway,” he wrinkled his brow and shook his head, still flashing his world class smile but there was a hint of melancholy behind it.     

“Sure, mate.  Best of five, then.”

“Are the tests… nearly done?”

“Actually, yes.  It should be just a few minutes more.”

“Is this going to help you solve the mystery of who I am?  Of where I belong?”

“Hopefully, Ben.  I cannot guarantee anything, you know, but I am certainly giving it my very best go.”

“Rudy…”  The BND paused.  “I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to say  _thank you_ for all that you have done for me.  If it were not for your efforts, there is an incredibly high statistical probability that I would be laying unanimated somewhere with no hope.  With nothing.  Despite the obvious (he pointed a long slender forefinger at the replacement eye and then gestured to his temple with a slight head wobble) I seem to be running smoothly, most certainly due to your diligence, and I heartily appreciate it.”  He ran his untethered arm against his torso, smoothing out the shirt and sliding over areas where his skin had been mended.

“Well, I didn't have BND parts so I did the best that I could,” Rudy started, self deprecatingly.  “But I can truly say that it was and is my pleasure.  To fix you.  And... To know you.”

They shared a smile and the BND glanced down at the board and touched two squares to move his first holographic piece out to commence the next game.

“Rudy…” He started, thoughtfully.

“Yes, what is it?” Rudy answered, eyes fixed on the board.

“What will I do if I cannot remember?”

Rudy paused with a deep breath before he offered, “Well, I suppose you will do what any amongst us would do.  You will make new memories.” Just then, a series of lights on the complicated-looking cradle where Ben rested his hand turned from red to green.  The whirring of the cooling fan stopped, followed by a small click.

“Ah, you’re done.  Right; let’s unhook you and have a gander at it.”   

“Cup of tea, Rudy?” Ben smiled and cocked his head to the side, eyebrows raised in question.

Tea?  Seriously?  Rudy had become more of a black coffee drinker over the years but out of pure nostalgia he said, “Yes, ta.  That would be lovely.”

The BND smiled with a curt nod and strode gracefully across the big room to the kitchenette station under the balcony along the far wall of the lab. The kitchenette was really just a wall counter with a pair of cabinets, a food-only sink, a tiny refrigerator, a smooth heat-free induction cooking surface, and a worn-out-looking coffee pot.   Rudy wasn't really much of a tea drinker, hadn't done since the last time he saw his grandmother, but the BND suggesting it seemed so fitting -- how could Rudy resist?  He actually had a package of tea in there that he had received from Stahl around the holidays last year and he’d never even taken the cellophane off of the box.           

‘ _Effective_ ,’ Rudy thought, as he watched the BND move about the work station with grace, ease, and boil the water while simultaneously retrieving two tea cup and saucer sets (also from Valerie, also never before used), sugar, and set the tray with grace and ease, like it was something that he had done all of his robotic life.    

“Fascinating,” Rudy breathed with a quiet chuckle and a head shake.

“Sorry, did you say something, mate?”

Rudy couldn't help but to be amused at the sound of deep baritone and the nuance of the accent.  He smiled, thinking on how the words sounded so like something from his youth, as if he’d stepped back in time and was watching a school chum preparing afternoon tea. 

“No, nothing important, Ben. one sugar, please.  Any cream that may or may not be in there is probably a scientific experiment by this point, so just sugar.”

Ben smiled and nodded, eyes casually but still purposefully fixed on the tray as if the tea prep and presentation was an everyday occurrence.

“Any biscuits in?” the android asked, and again, the roboticist in Rudy paused; ‘ _how well done_ ,’ he mused to himself, as he watched the android scuttle.  This wasn't a man, it was a machine; and yet the movements, the voice, the syntax, the skill and ease with which the fingertips handled the delicate bone china tea cup (which, of course, could be crushed into dust with barely an electronic thought) – were all perfect.  Too perfect to be real, he noted, as he glanced out the window to see skyscrapers dotting the skyline and The Wall in the distance, both serving to bring him back to the present day and locale.  But admittedly, manufactured or not, Ben’s London colloquialism routine caused a nostalgic tightness to warm across Rudy’s chest.

“Check the cupboard,” Rudy mused, crossing his arms over his waistcoat.  The BND smiled and did just that, unearthing a pack of stale shortbread that he artfully arranged on a tray that he’d found, followed by the cups and saucers.  Rudy cocked his head, and for a moment, he let his mind wander and imagined that Ben was just a mate from uni (albeit the most handsome and dashing mate he had, of course, never had).  With his mannerisms and voice, Ben was like a long-lost childhood chum who had attended the same schools as Rudy (just perhaps not at the same time). 

The tea tray arrived and Ben’s eyes, one gray-green steel and one pure DRN-blue, locked on Rudy’s with a head cock and said, “Y’alright, Rudy?”

“No, yes; everything’s fine.”

Rudy took the cup and saucer nearest to him, still smiling at the absurdity of it all.  “No, it’s perfect.”  He took a tiny sip and continued, “Ben.  This is the single best cup of tea I have had all year.  Cheers, then.” (In actuality, it was the only cup of tea he’d had all year, but really – hardly worth mentioning.)

“It is my pleasure, Rudy.”

Rudy smiled and raised his teacup, pinkie loosely tucked.

Ben took a tiny sip, barely touching the liquid to his synthetic lips (more for show and to confirm that the temperature was appropriate) and placed the cup back on the saucer on the tray, gazing up at the stained-glass dome above them.

“Your lab is extraordinary, Rudy.  This is a church, is it not?”

“Well, it was.  But it has not been for quite some time.”

“It is marvelous.”

“It even has an organ, still.  Behind the screens on the back wall are all pipes.”  Rudy sipped again, quite enjoying himself now.  He nibbled a tiny corner of stale shortbread as a ping resounding from his computer caught his attention.  He set the cup and biscuit down, thrummed the crumbs from his fingertips over the saucer, and swiveled the chair to face the screen, eyes roving over the data.

“Hm.  Well, that is interesting.”

“What is interesting?”  Ben stood and moved to hover behind his left shoulder.

“Well, as you know, your…model…of android was designed with two modes; a standard mode, which is what you typically run (and is what you are running now)...”

“…and my VC Combat Mode,” Ben finished.

“Yes, precisely.  Well, according to the test scan, your VC mode has an error in it.  A glitch.”

Ben’s eyes scanned the screen as Rudy continued.

“Moreover, see here?  The diagnostic test has detected a virus that seems to have …attached itself… to some of the VC mode code.  A loop virus; it is the kind of virus that …well, think of it this way: think of a chain that is missing a link, missing a critical and final piece of code; once the code link is introduced, the chain attaches itself back to itself, thereby completing and disabling itself.  That is…the simplified version, but that is the basic concept.”

“Is the missing code string the reason why I cannot access my memory?”

“Well, the virus is likely the cause of why you cannot access your memories, and if we can find the missing code string and introduce it into the virus, it may disable the virus which will then allow you to access your memories.  This is, of course, just a theory.  Finding the right code string, however, may prove to be like… trying to find a needle in the combined mass of all of the haystacks in the history of the world.”

Ben looked at Rudy through quiet eyes.  The expression was plain, but the silence said more than any words ever could.

Rudy sighed, and swiveled his chair back to the screen to study the data.  “…and yes,” he responded to the BND’s unanswered question, “of course I will try all that I can to find it.”


	14. Chapter 14

Rudy looked up to see John and Dorian coming in through the side doors of the lab.  As they approached, John’s leg beeped a periodic and insistent warning that it was running dangerously low on charge.  The detective walked stiff-legged to the stairs and looked up as if willing himself to levitate to the second level. 

“Y’alright, John?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  John began hoisting himself delicately but determinedly up the stairs before Dorian could offer to carry him.  He didn't think he would be able to live with himself if his android partner had to carry him up to the second level.  Dorian followed behind John, letting him ascend on his own but ready to catch him if he slipped. 

“Let me know if you need anything.  I’m going to go and set Ben up on the charging pod and then I’ll likely turn in myself.” 

John grunted in acknowledgement as he continued his progress up the stairs.  He made it all the way to the back to the cot and lowered himself down gently, cyber leg stiffly out in front of him.

“Need a hand?” Dorian leaned into the doorway and dimmed the automatic lights with the manual dimmer.  He studied John with blazing blue eyes, mechanical irises adjusting slightly to the low-lit room with a barely-audible buzz.  He took a measured step towards the cot, and then another, and lowered his head to glance at John and await a response. 

John raised his chin slightly to see eye-to-eye with the android now looming over him.  The dim light above Dorian haloed his head and darkened the features of his face.  In this light, Dorian’s skin looked slightly darker and less luminescent than it had a tendency to look in full room light (in the sunlight, John had noticed, the DRN almost glowed at times).  Dorian’s skin gave off an unmistakable sheen (always the dead-giveaway to spot an android, no matter how well-designed or real-looking); that perfect, unpocked, shiny skin (except for where a designer had added an enlarged pore or crease for texture or more realism).  But back lit, face in semi darkness, to John’s eyes, Dorian looked  _almost_ …well. 

Before he let himself get too distracted (bourbon still dulling his nerves), John remembered the leg and Dorian’s offer of assistance.  Given the stairs, he reluctantly agreed with a sigh, unzipping his trouser leg and unhooking the cyberlimb from his thigh with an exhale of relief.

Dorian disentangled the leg from the trousers, sock, and shoe, and took it down the stairs to the mini pod at the corner of the lab.  He connected the leg to the charging dock with a slight click, and as electricity flowed to the leg, a light blinked on at the base to confirm that it was charging.  Dorian looked at the leg on the pod and blue lights speckled his cheek.  It fascinated him, and he reached out and ran his fingers gently over the leg from the knee cap to the ankle, barely touching, fingertips sparkling blue as they slid along.  The leg was designed to fit John perfectly, and as such, it was the exact size and shape as John’s natural leg.  It was marvelous and wonderful, beautifully made, and Dorian could never understand why John seemed to hate it so much.  Dorian continued to let his hand slide over the prosthetic and wondered what John’s other leg would feel like under a feather-light touch like this.  Not that John would ever allow that, Dorian knew.  It didn't matter.  For Dorian, this leg was as much a part of John and any other organic part of John.

John.

His John. 

Dorian returned to the room to find John already passed out; the two doubles at Burnsides had conspired with John’s already weary body and mind to knock him out cold.  A quick scan of his vitals confirmed his heart rate had slowed and his breathing was even and deep.  His jacket and shoulder holster lay where they’d fallen when John shucked out of them, and his piece rested on the little table next to the cot.  Silently, Dorian crossed to the cot and stood over John for a moment, listening to him sleep.  He looked so young like this, all of the weight of the world off of his shoulders.  Dorian slid the detective’s badge out from his waist band and set it on the table next to the piece.  He didn't hesitate for an instant before unsnapping the fly of John's cargoes and unzipping them until they were loosened.  He crossed to the end of the cot and deftly tugged the microfiber fabric at the ankles and pulled gently till they slid down his hips, John shifting slightly in his sleep to allow them to slide off.  Finally, he unrolled the bed roll and draped it over the detective.  “Good night, John,” he whispered and moved to climb into the charging pod.


	15. Chapter 15

John awoke with a start, unsure for a moment where he was. He blinked his eyes as the room came into focus and propped himself up on one elbow to find his com and check the time.

**_7:47am_ **

Ugh.

It was still too early, and yet he was late. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and sat up to discover that a glass of water had been set on the low table next to the cot, accompanied by three little smooth brown tablets. Propped against the cot was John’s leg, fully charged, smelling faintly of olive oil. A breathy chuckle escaped John’s nose, and he sat up and popped the pills and drained the glass. As he attached the leg to his thigh, the hologram appeared, changing the leg from a steely gray to the pinkish brown-beige that matched his natural skin tone. It wasn’t until he was standing that he realized he was just in his boxers and his tank top. ‘When did that happen?’ he puzzled to himself as he looked for his cargos. His trousers and jacket, along with his shoulder holster and shoes, had been folded neatly atop each other at the foot of the cot.

Neatly.

Dorian.

John still had not gotten used to having a partner that so matter-of-factly just took care of him, like it was his natural instinct. It was programming, he supposed, but it was more than that, felt like so much more than that. It had to be. He thought of Anna, who had pretended to love him; so convincingly, in fact, that it made the reality that it was all just a ruse, a means to an end, so much more of a mind fuck for John; she had pretended to love him, but there were very few instances that he could recall where she had done these little kinds of things that stemmed from genuine care. John mused bitterly that while pretend love was evidently relatively easy to fabricate, care was something that was hard to fake. John righted himself, dressed, and noted just the tiniest hint of a hangover throbbing the bones around his eyes.  He made his way stiffly to a washroom adjacent to the room to answer nature's call and splash some cold water on his face.  As he dried his face, he studied his stubbled chin in the mirror and determined silently that today there would be a break in the case.  

As he exited the washroom and crossed to the balcony to head towards the stairs, he heard music, violins, drifting upwards from the main floor.

He was not prepared for what he saw below.

Ben and Dorian, the spy and the cop, were dancing. Well, they were about to dance, it looked like.

Dorian stood straight, chin pointed to the left and slightly elevated; his left arm was slightly crooked, fingers arched up, and his right arm he held lithely up at an angle to his body, fingers bent in expectation. He heard Ben’s voice blending with the music, giving Dorian the instructions for the basic step.

“For this dance, I shall lead and you will follow; your right foot should be positioned just slightly between my two feet and your left foot should be just astride my right, so that my right foot is between your two feet. Perfect; just like that.”

Ben stepped in and tilted his own chin up and slightly to the left as well, so that his and Dorian’s cheeks were parallel but held well apart. He positioned his right hand on Dorian’s left shoulder blade and raised his left hand to just under Dorian’s flexed right hand. Dorian’s right arm came to rest just at Ben’s shoulder, their bodies parallel but not touching.

“So, when we begin to dance, as I am leading you will step back with your left leg and I will advance with my right, placing my right foot just between your feet, and then you will step to the right side with your right foot and I will step with my left. To complete the pass, you will guide your left leg to join your right and as I am leading, I will join my right to my left. Then we will repeat, except this time I step back with my left, and you advance with your right, so that the step is reversed. This is the basic step. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“…and ONE two three TWO two three THREE two three…”

They were waltzing.

John lowered himself down the stairs and stepped into the lab to find Rudy sitting at his work station, watching like a wall flower from the side, arms crossed over his chest, right hand cupping a mug of black coffee.

As John approached Rudy uncrossed his arms and stood, picked up a second mug and passed it to him. John accepted the coffee and glanced back to Ben and Dorian, saying in a quiet, even tone, “Rudy? The robots… are dancing. Why are the robots dancing, Rudy?”

“Well, they have both been up since quite early, apparently. Fully charged and raring to go. And it appears that they were …bored.”

John and Rudy assumed similar postures, arms crossed, mugs cupped in the crooks of elbows, leaning slightly against the table behind them for support.

John took a long draw of the coffee and watched Dorian, his noble partner that could flip vans, disarm bombs, punch through walls and scale buildings to catch criminals, be led around the floor by a known international spy bot with amnesia. He thought back to the first time that he had ever laid eyes on Dorian, the moment when Rudy had unzipped his nylon hanging bag marked ‘DRN’ and he had said, ‘this is one of the crazy ones, isn’t it?’ and realized that perhaps it was not an incorrect diagnosis, despite Rudy’s chastising at the time.

“…coffee's good, Rudy.”

“Ben made it.”

“...'course he did.”

Despite the absurdity, and also due to the fact that it was still too early and the effects of the coffee and the pain relief hadn't quite completely pushed the hangover out from behind his eyes, John watched his partner move around the makeshift dance floor in time with the BND and sipped. Truth be told, Dorian was a good dancer, and John didn't mind watching him move gracefully in time to the music. He did sort of mind that he didn't mind, however; he wasn't sure if he was ready to admit that he might or might not have…attraction? feelings? something? ...for his android partner.

John set the cup down and approached Ben and Dorian. “Morning, kids. Sorry to interrupt the prom, but d’ya think we could get to work now?”

Dorian and John stepped back from each other and bowed courteously to one another in a formal show of the end of the dance, and Dorian turned to John.

“Good morning, John. I would ask you if you slept well, but judging by the snoring I listened to all night, I will assume that you did. Are you feeling good and well rested?”

“Peachy, thanks. Never better. All right, so we need to head to Lorenzo Shaw’s this morning and talk to the owner there. Find out if he knows anything about Dorchester or Ben.”

“…and am I to be accompanying you or shall I be remaining here in the scintillating (he emphasized) company of 681? Perhaps he would like to learn the foxtrot.” Ben asked with an extra toothy grin. It was the first halfway snarky thing that John had heard come out of the BND’s mouth, and it actually worked -- sounded pretty natural, even. The comment made John think for a moment that he might actually be able to get used to this cheery Brit-bot if he wasn't going to be Mr. Mary Poppins in the cyber flesh 24 hours a day. John had more than begun to tire of the constant good mood and the almost unfailingly good-natured remarks that seemed to just flow from the BND.

“No, I think you should come with us. It might -- I don’t know, jog your memory? Is that even possible?” John shrugged questioningly at Rudy who shrugged noncommittally back at him as if to say it couldn't hurt. “Well, if someone sees you and recognizes you, maybe it’ll jog theirs. Either way, the sooner that we get some answers the sooner I can go back to sleeping in my own bed.”

“John,” Rudy added, “perhaps a trip back over to the warehouse might be in order. Again, it is rather a long shot but there may just be something in there that might stimulate him – you know, spark a memory of some kind – and override whatever it is that has his memories on lock down.”

“Yeah, sounds good. We’ll go after the gallery.” John sidled out the door and headed towards the cruiser, squinting into the already-bright morning sun, followed by the androids. Today was going to be a shades kind-of-day.

Dorian held open the back door of the cruiser until Ben slid in. He shut the door and moved to open the front door for himself when John looked at him over the top of the cruiser and said, “Hey…”

Dorian stilled, hand paused tentatively above the handle of the door of the cruiser.

“Yes?”

“Dorian, uh…last night… did you… Did you take my pants off?”

“Yes.” Dorian answered plainly and with no hesitation.

John paused. The morning was clear and bright, a little crisp, and John looked up at a blue blue sky before locking eyes again with his partner and said, “Why?”

“Because. You looked…uncomfortable. And besides, I can always tell when you've slept in your pants, man. And I believe that Maldonado can, too.”

This was not the response that John had been anticipating, and he tensed his chin and cocked one eyebrow, jolting his head back with an incredulous grin. “What? I don’t sleep in my pants.”

“Not always, but you have. And again, I can tell when you do. And…” Dorian hesitated, and after a pause continued more cautiously than he had before. “John, I am your partner. I look out for you. There are two things in my life that are important to me. Do you want to know what they are?”

John knew. But he wasn't sure that he was ready to hear the words come tumbling out of the DRN’s mouth.

Dorian.

His partner.

His department-issued, non-biological, DRN officer partner.

His Dorian.  
  
His.

It wouldn't have mattered what Detective Kennex said at that moment, for Dorian would have told him despite whatever protesting John had attempted to make.

Dorian held his head up, chin tilted slightly toward the clear blue cloudless sky, and said, “There are two things in my world that matter more to me than anything else… The first is my job – I was made to be a cop. Built to be one. Designed to be a police officer, and I love my job and the things that I do every day – helping people, saving people… That’s my purpose.”

John took a deep breath, a warmth spreading in his chest that was due partly to nerves, due partly to the fact that his heart began to race, and partly due to the sheer awkwardness that made him want to simultaneously hide under a rock and soar into the air. He held his breath.

Just then 681 approached the vehicle. “Detective Kennex, perhaps you would like me to ride in the front passenger seat. I am a superior model than this DR…”

“Get in the back, Max. Dorian…hold that thought; we’ll finish this discussion later.” With that, John lowered himself in behind the wheel and shut the door.


	16. Chapter 16

John wasn't sure exactly why the sexbot showroom made him so uneasy, but it did.  Maybe it was because It just felt weird to be looking at all of this scantily clad flesh (that in actuality wasn't really flesh at all but an incredible facsimile thereof) in the broad and unflinching daylight and to know that none of it was real and yet still be strangely turned on simply by the sheer sight of it all.  Blocking it out and yet still staying focused, eyes forward, scrolling baseball stats and thoughts of drowning kittens through his head to ward off the arousal, was a helluva task.  It was a lot to think about and NOT think about at the same time, especially since although it had been terribly embarrassing in the moment, his partner’s assessment of his testicles had been correct – they were a little backed up from non-release.  And scantily clad sexbots not withstanding, it really had been a long time since John had had an orgasm, alone or with others, and it was starting to weigh on him (mentally and physically). 

Despite the sleazy nature of the business, the Lorenzo Shaw Gallery had an air of professional elegance to it. The gallery was well-known to be the premiere sexbot showroom in the city.  The vaulted room was bright and airy with tall ceiling-height windows that allowed sunlight to filter in from all sides.  The clear panels of the ceiling were actually UV-blocking holoboards that constantly scrolled advertisements for the gallery, projecting 10’-wide images of come-hither bangbot stares and smiles every few seconds in sexy pink and fuscia hues.  A winding steel staircase led up to a second level catwalk around the perimeter of the expansive space.  The show room was sparsely decorated so as not to detract from the merchandise, and featured a huge interactive viewing table in the center.  Round platforms topped with a variety of sexbots, mostly female but some male, all ridiculously sexy and swaying constantly tossing their hair and striking sexy, suggestive poses, were arranged throughout the room.

When they entered, John glanced around to try and find the owner; as the sexbots noticed their presence they began shifting and writhing with slightly more urgency as they walked past. 

“Hi, Ben…” John jerked his head to see that one of the bots was waving coyly at Ben, jutting her hip out and winking as she rolled her body weight from one leg to the next in a slow, languorous slide.  Several others followed suit, and suddenly it was a quiet sultry chorus of echoes of more of the same.

“Hi, Ben…”

“Hi, Ben…”

“Hi, Ben…”

“Hi, Ben…”

John watched the bots flirt with Ben, slightly stunned.  Sure, they flirted with everybody (it was kind of their thing) but they acknowledged Ben by name as if they knew him, albeit in the only way that they knew how, with sexy hair tosses and posturing, positioning themselves in captivating and alluring ways, throwing him knowing glances and pouty lip kisses.

“Well, Ben.  Looks like you've got yourself a fan club.  Recognize any of these bots?  They seem to know you pretty well…”

Ben shook his head and shrugged a no yet nodded a smile to each one of the bots in acknowledgement as he walked along, responding to each greeting as he passed.  Ben broke off from them and began a course around the gallery to greet each of the bots, smiling and nodding as the lithe bots flirted and posed.   As John and Dorian made their way towards the main counter, John concentrating on keeping his eyes ahead, Lorenzo Shaw emerged from the back room and crossed towards them; as he approached, the sophisticated-looking man’s dark eyes narrowed with recognition and he spoke. 

“Good afternoon, Detectives.  What can I do for you today?  …changed your mind about sexbots?  Ready to try the latest model?” He smiled as he spoke to John but there was an uneasy air beneath his outwardly-casual demeanor.

“Not today, but thanks for asking,” John was quick to respond. “Actually, we’re here to talk to you about Charles Dorchester.”

“Dorchester?”  He hesitated for a moment and then shrugged up his lower lip and then spoke.  “Yes, I know him well, actually.  We first met when Sebastian Jones and I had Orillium Sapients before the bankruptcy.  Dorchester worked for Orillium as a private consultant and he was critical in helping us develop and test several of the patents that we held, including our award-winning blush response.  He comes by every so often but I haven’t seen him in several weeks.  He’s a brilliant roboticist.”

“Was,” John pronounced.   

The man with the silvery greying hair and brown eyes gasped slightly, clearly stunned, and leaned hard against the corner of the viewing table. 

“He was found dead in London, and we’re trying to find out who did it and why.  My partner Dorian and I found this BND…Ben…” John swiveled to gesture towards Ben, who was currently in the corner of the gallery grinning while a brunette sexbot in a lavender teddy made eyes at him, “at his warehouse when we were investigating a break-in there.  He was pretty beaten up and can’t access his memory.   We were hoping that… well, that you might have some ideas on who would want to kill Dorchester and destroy his android.  And why.”

“Yes.  Ben.  I know him.”  Lorenzo still had a shocked faraway look in his eyes as he tried to process the news.

“Well, given the greeting he got from the showroom floor models, I would guess he was no stranger here…”

“Yes, he is registered to Dorchester.  Er, was.  Not too long before we closed down Orillium Sapients he brought him to the lab to run a few diagnostics.  Seems Ben had some sort of a virus loaded into his code and he was trying to extract it.  We had more equipment readily available to us and I let him use it.  Let him use whatever he liked.”

“Did he tell you what the virus was?”

“No.  If I recollect, he said that it was something that could become a problem -- a very big problem, I got the impression; to be honest, I’m not even sure that he was ever able to fix it.  Something about the VC combat mode.  Obviously, IRCs don’t have a combat mode so it was a bit beyond my scope.  When Orillium dissolved, I offered him a full-time position here as a sales person and an on-site technician, but he declined.  He did some consulting work for me for a time but mostly focused on his own business, trading in tech and doing repairs for private owners.  He was a good man; he kept pretty neutral when Sebastian and I were in litigation over intellectual property rights.” 

“So, no idea why he might have been in London or who might have wanted him dead?”

“None.  Like I said, he was a good person and a brilliant roboticist.  Man, what a shock…” Shaw trailed off.

Mr. Shaw,” Dorian added calmly from behind John, “When we were investigating the robots with the human DNA you mentioned that Orillium Sapients’ biggest client was an Albanian consortium until they found a new supplier, but as we came to find out, they didn't actually find a new supplier, they simply began making their own bots.  Do you think that it is possible that Dorchester may have been either supplying them with tech or consulting with them?  Or both?”

“Possibly; like I said when we first spoke, at the time we lost the account I was stunned to think that anyone out there in the industry could make a better sexbot than Jones and I, but it turned out they were indeed making them themselves.” 

“Yes, but how?  How did they have the ability?  The know-how?  The technology?  Surely building a sophisticated sex machine is a little more complicated that putting together an erector set,” John added, mostly thinking out loud as his eyes gazed off to the side, full of thought.

“Nice choice of words, John,” Dorian deadpanned.

John rolled his eyes through a grin and added, “besides, we shut Are Friends Electric down months ago and Yuri is in the cubes, presumably for a long time.  Most of the people working for him were either killed in the raid of the skin lab or arrested.”

“Look,” Lorenzo continued, “As I said before, the Albanians were good customers.  My contact was Yuri and he always paid on time.  But if Dorchester had anything to do with them, it’s news to me.” 

John was listening but his gaze kept flitting elsewhere.  In the corner of the show room, a male bot with a naked torso and well-fitting black denim jeans stretched himself lazily from a steel support beam from under the staircase and rolled his hips as he made eyes in their direction.  He seemed to have locked eyes with John and he brought one hand down from where it held the support and stuck a thumb into the waist-band of the trousers, pulling the band down with a slinky grin to reveal a lovely muscular dip at his pelvic bones.

“Making friends, John?” Dorian asked wryly as he watched John eye the bot.

 “What!? No!  No, I was just…”

 "Staring,” Dorian finished.

Lorenzo chuckled softly, having noticed the exchange, and offered, “Detective Kennex, the bots scan your vitals constantly.  They are made and programmed to please.  They infer by your blood flow, heartbeat, breathing, and firing synapses, exactly what turns you on.  The newest models of these bots run complex algorithms that decipher your bodies subtle chemistry shifts, changes in vitals, even eye positioning and pupil dilation, to determine what is turning you on at any given moment.  They ‘remember’ the spikes in your responses and they focus on those spikes to scientifically replicate their movements and nuances during your arousal peaks to make themselves more attractive to you.  Not that sex is a hard sell, mind you; but sexbots are, in and of themselves, some of the best advertising ever created!  The product advertises itself based on the changes and shifts that occur inside you as you experience it to determine what makes it the most appealing to you, thereby becoming infinitely more saleable.  Like I said, with sexbots, it’s not a hard sell.  ‘Sex Sells,’ isn't that the trope?  But the science behind this makes them clinically irresistible.  Incidentally,” Lorenzo nodded towards Ben, “the BNDs run a similar algorithm that makes them especially…effective… and deadly because they adapt incredibly quickly to make themselves more likable, based on your reactions to them.” 

“And here I just thought that he was a nice guy,” John added dryly.

“Well, he is.  But if he was programmed currently to complete a task -- a mission, let’s say -- or a special assignment, the algorithm would be constantly updating and running to…figure you out and gain your empathy in order to complete his mission and satisfy his charge as commanded.” 

“How do we know that he’s not doing that now?  That he’s not currently on a mission?”

“We don’t! I’m no combat droid expert, but I would think that you could never be 100% sure that he wasn't doing that right now -- gathering information whilst gaining empathy.”

_G_ _athering information whilst gaining empathy._

John’s mind flashed to Anna and he felt his organic leg wobble, knee going week.  For once he was thankful for his cyberlimb because it stayed steady even though his heart fluttered.

Dorian felt John go cold and sensed the subtle shift in his body language and temperature; crossing between John and Lorenzo he said he said, “Mr. Shaw.  Is there a quiet place that Detective Kennex and I might have a moment of privacy?” 

“Certainly.  Just down the hall to the left.  Step into one of the meeting rooms and change the holo panel to ‘occupied’ so you will not be disturbed.”

Dorian turned to Kennex and gestured subtly with his head towards the hallway and John turned to lead the way, the color drained from his face.  Out of sight, Dorian moved to put a steadying hand on John’s lower back and John brushed it off, walking into a room with an open door; the holo-panel said  **_First Glances:_ ** **_Meeting Room Three VACANT_ ** in friendly inviting letters.  Dorian shut the door behind him and waved his hand over the door pad and changed it say  **_OCCUPIED_ ** .  The room was small and looked like a typical conference room except for the supple black leather sofa lining one wall.  John leaned heavily on his knees, breathing deeply, willing the tightening panic in his chest to subside.  Dorian stood next to him, ready to catch him, but not too close as to crowd him.  John’s PTSD meant the occasional panic attack.  They were becoming more and more rare with each passing day but Shaw’s words had triggered a nearly paralyzing wave to come over him. 

Dorian spoke in a quiet cautious tone, cognizant of how delicate his partner’s emotional state was at the moment. 

“John.  What happened out there?  …You okay, man?”

“Dorian, I…” John began in a shaky voice but his words trailed off as thoughts crowded his mind, making it impossible for him to talk.

_Anna. Trust. Love. Deception. Lies. Pain. Death. Ben._

Finally, John stood straight and spoke, smoothing his hands on the legs of his cargos and willing the trembling to subside.

“Lies, Dorian.  It could all be lies. Everything.  It could just… all be lies.  What if this bot is just… playing us?” John’s voice was a little frantic at the end.

Dorian stood directly in front of John.  He reached out slowly and grasped his partner’s deltoids, rounding his hands in a firm but gentle grip, and straightened his arms so that he held John in front of him at arm’s length.  The touch startled John slightly and served to ground him, and he locked eyes with the DRN.

“John.   I can confirm that it is not all lies.  I cannot lie to you.  I am simply not programmed that way.  When we banter I might use metaphor, simile, hyperbole, but that is just part of my colloquialism routine.  But I cannot lie to you.  I cannot convey a false statement to you.”

“You can’t?”

Dorian hesitated for a moment before adding, “It’s not just that I can’t.”

“Oh?”

“I wouldn't.”

Dorian smiled at John as he felt his form relax.  His heartbeat was beginning to slow back down to where it had been before the onslaught of the panic attack.

“As far as Ben goes, I have not detected any evidence that would suggest that he has a master command or task right now.  I think that the empathy that you are feeling from him is simply his personality algorithm running for its own sake because that’s how he’s programmed.  He’s a people pleaser.”

“So what you’re saying is that he is really just a nice guy but let’s hope we never get on his bad side?”

Dorian’s smooth lips parted and he nodded into a smile, blinking a slow blink.  “Exactly. 681 and I have been monitoring his data transference to see if he is attempting to access or download any records or intel from the Delta Division servers, and so far, he hasn't been.” 

“So he’s good?”

“As far as I know, yes; he’s good.  Just to continue to be safe and keep our guard up, I've sent a message to 681 requesting that he do a data check every five minutes to make sure that there are no ulterior codes or data being downloaded…”

Dorian paused as his cheek blazed blue and then turned to John, and said, “John, we need to go.  I’m getting an SOS from Rudy.  Something’s wrong.”


	17. Chapter 17

John sped down the freeway, lights blazing, dividing the traffic like it was the Second Building of The Wall.   Dorian touched the console and Maldonado’s voice came through the car speakers as she spoke into the com at the situation table in the heart of the bullpen.

“John?  Where are you? What’s happening?  We got Rudy’s distress call.”

Dorian and John had rushed from the gallery, the two other droids in tow, after Dorian had received the distress call from Rudy.  Rudy had the digital version of a banker’s button on the underside of his main work station that he could press to send a silent alarm to the precinct and to the Delta Division server to alert the MXs and Dorian.  Rudy had installed it shortly after his inaugural stint undercover, ‘ _You know, just in case_ ,’ he’d said at the time, still puffed up from the experience.  Now it was proving to be an especially good idea, in hindsight.

“We’re on our way to Rudy’s lab now.  Dorian, any visuals on CCTV?”

A trickle of blue ran down Dorian’s face from temple to cheekbone as he stated, “Two men have abducted Rudy and have taken him forcibly out of the lab.” 

“Any Face-Rec?” called Maldonado through the console.

“No, they’re wearing glintz masks.”

“Great. Spritzers.” John’s words were casual but his eyes were menacing. He pushed thoughts of the awkward, brilliant roboticist being hurt (or worse) out of his head, and instead, focused on the driving.  He tucked his chin to glare from under a tight, focused stare over his grip on the wheel and pinballed the cruiser through the late-morning traffic on the freeway. 

“Dorian, what about anything on the exterior cams?  Are you seeing any vehicles?  License tag bar codes?”  John sped along, siren blaring and lights flashing past clusters of cars that were halting and crowding the emergency lanes to let them pass.  Dorian’s eyes stared straight ahead, glazing slightly as he accessed and reviewed the footage.  The two droids in the back seat sat shoulder to shoulder and lurched side to side with each sudden lane change.

“I see Rudy getting pushed into a black sedan with blacked-out windows but the plates don’t match. It appears that a third person is driving the vehicle away from the lab and the vehicle has been equipped with a tag scrambler.  The car has no discernible markings, but there is a 2” holo decal up in the left hand corner of the back windscreen that says  **_Airport Limo Express Lane_ ** .”

“Gee.  Glintz masks, tag scrambler, and some speedy trips to the airport… Why do I feel like I know these guys?” John drawled sarcastically with a glance to Dorian.

Dorian shifted his head slightly to the left and responded, “John, I am accessing the camera in the lab again to see if there is anything of note.”

“Hey, guys?”  Stahl chimed in from the speaker phone. “I've got your pursuit on the traffic cams and they’re heading towards the River, like over towards Front St.”

John made another sudden lane change, rocking the droids to the port side of the cruiser, and took the exit ramp for a quick change of course.

“John,” Dorian leaned towards Kennex as the vehicle swerved along; with another line of light down his cheek, he said, “I have been reviewing the footage from the interior cams at the lab from the moments just before the distress call was issued.  I can see the file open on Rudy’s main readout screen and it appears that he finally completed the tracking call for Ben’s missing eye just moments before he was abducted.”

From behind them Ben pushed himself to the middle of the back seat and gripped the seat backs and leaned forward against the inertia of the speeding vehicle towards John and Dorian.  “Where is it?” He asked, and his voice cracked on the last few words with just a touch of static.

Stalh’s voice came over again clear from the console and filled the cruiser, “I've got them turning left onto Front St now.”

John glanced at Dorian for a moment before locking eyes back on the street and saying, “We’re on it, Val; I think I know where they’re headed.  Maldonado, I suggest we ready a tactical team.  Dorian’s sending you the address now.”

“Copy that, John.  We’re on our way.”

John rocked the cruiser at top speed towards the warehouse.


	18. Chapter 18

Rudy watched a billowy column of e-cig vapor float up from behind him into the expanse of the warehouse and dissipate into cool mid-morning sun that filtered in through the graying windows.  The warehouse was almost completely quiet, other than the sounds of the vaper’s heavy breathing behind him, the distinct rustling of fabric from the tactical trousers of the gunmen flanking him on either side, and the occasional scrunching of their heavy-sounding boots as they shifted their weight from foot to foot and retrained their guns at Rudy.  The three had been eerily silent in the car on the way over here; they had blindfolded Rudy for the drive, which seemed ridiculous to Rudy because he knew exactly where they were going and they knew he knew.  Truth be told, from Rudy’s point of view, the whole situation would have been absolutely thrilling if he were not so frightened.  He loved and feared this part of the job, the bit where he could be a hero, and while the opportunities for him to be brilliant in the tech realm were daily occurrences, he rarely got to be heroic in the field.  His wrists had been hastily taped together behind his back and once they had arrived he’d been forced into a stiff-backed chair in the middle of the vaulted industrial room by the gunmen.  Rudy remembered his training and kept his eyes down and off of the faces of the assailants when they’d yanked off his blindfold, glancing only a tiny peek at the tell-tale wet-looking sheen of the spray-on face rec masks.  They'd left their faces bare and made no attempt to conceal their identities from him; _'Never a good sign,’_   he'd remarked to himself.  If he was allowed to see them and could easily identify them, then they obviously had no plans to let him out alive.    

"Where is it,” a low serious tone growled from slightly to the left and behind Rudy’s left ear, only it sounded to Rudy more like “Vehr eh zeht?”

“I am not sure I know to what you are referring… to… and even if I…”

The stongly-accented flunky jabbed Rudy hard in the back of his ribs with what felt like to Rudy to be the blunt end of a gun and leaned his mouth so close into Rudy’s ear that he could feel the hot, nicotine-tinged, spittled breath growl out in a whisper, “Think… Hard.”

Rudy winced for a moment before his face re-resolved into a trembling combination of terror and an attempt at a stoic poker face.  The resulting look was a very stiff yet shaky Rudy doing quite a bit of swallowing and blinking, a look not entirely unlike that of a skittish Chihuahua trying to avoid attention.  He tried his best to channel his inner Callum Waits but found that his adrenaline was causing his pulse to throb, his hands to shake, and an indelicate pool of nervous sweat to collect in the hollows under his arms and slide traitorously down his ribs.  He licked his lips in an attempt to calm himself and tried his best to look reserved and collected.  Back at the lab the thick-armed men had intended to surprise him while he hovered deep in thought over his computer screen, but the glinting faces on the live feed of the security camera on a second screen in his periphery had caught his eye.  At that moment he had turned fully to face the screen and stared for five seconds of shock and mounting terror before they were in the doors, guns drawn and advancing on him.  He’d barely had time to find and sound the silent alarm under the workstation before he’d raised his arms in surrender and they were shuffling him outside into the back of an unknown car.  He regretted that he’d had no time to grab the fedora.   

“We watch you, Dr. Lom.  We know everything.  We know you track the eye of the bot to this place.  Find it.”

Another short jab to the ribs and Rudy was pushed awkwardly into a standing position from out of the stiff chair and was prodded to walk.  As he began advancing with furtive unsure steps forward, no clear destination ahead except the wide and unhinting expanse of the warehouse in front of him, he felt as if he were playing a game of _Hotter/Colder_ with no one to clue him in as to whether the temperature was warming with each progressive step or growing cold.  He plodded tentatively along, eyes roving over mostly empty shelves while the tape on his bound wrists yanked at sensitive hairs with each movement, and willed the cops of Delta Division to materialize as soon as possible.

“Look, I assure you, I have no idea of what you are after and…”

This time, the jab to the ribs was harder and more insistent, and it was followed by a box to the back of his head, causing him to stumble slightly on his feet.

“Enough games, Dr. Lom.  You tracked the BND eyeball to this location and we want it, so do not try and stall. Find it or we will kill you.”

Rudy swallowed again, praying for some semblance of spit to moisten the tacky stuck surfaces of his dry mouth while trying his best to remain calm.  He spoke after noisily clearing his throat.

“I – it’s true; I tracked the eyeball to a range of coordinates but I can assure that I have no idea where it actually is.  It could be anywhere in the building.  Or even outside.”

The truth was that Rudy had determined that the coordinates were indeed close to the building but seemed not to necessarily be inside of the building.  He had been studying the location and talking aloud to himself in an attempt to work it out in his mind just before the intimidating Albanian men had appeared on the screen and entered the lab to accost him.

“Lucky for you, Dr. Lom, we search the warehouse and we found it clean.  But. We know that it is close by and that is probably within few hundred meters of where we stand right now.”

Rudy glanced out the window, attempting to hide the din of realization that hit him.  The flunky seemed to notice, however, because he glanced out the window as well. 

Outside of the warehouse on the opposite side of the parking lot was the grassy undeveloped lot, partially flanked on the one side by a fence.

The vaping captor took another long toke before looking back towards Rudy with a wide and insidious grin and said, “We take a walk, Dr. Lom.”


	19. Chapter 19

John pulled the cruiser into the curb a half a block from the warehouse and threw it into park.  Silently, the detective and three androids exited the car and advanced up the block towards the warehouse, pressing themselves to the far side of the sidewalk so that they brushed shoulders into an ivy-covered metal fence.  The old-fashioned chain link fence lined the sidewalk to a point and then ended abruptly where the marshy unmowed field began. They crept along the fence as far as they could and still remain unseen from the warehouse and stilled, hunching.  John peered around the edge of the fence across the field and across the gravel parking lot where he and Dorian had parked on their first visit to the warehouse.  John glanced at the steel door of the building and squinted into the mid-morning sun to try and spot any movement.  Dorian flanked him at his right side but stood slightly behind him, weapon drawn.   Dorian turned his head to left and started to speak to John when suddenly he jerked his head right and scanned the thickly-intertwining ivy with a fierce look.  With lightning speed, Dorian reached through the chain link fence and grabbed ahold of something; quietly, but with an unmistakably minatory tone of pure authority, Dorian said, “Don’t.  Move.  Drop your weapon, or the next breath may be your last.”

John jerked his gun towards the fence to whatever or whomever Dorian had grabbed and blinked, momentarily stunned.  He’d never heard Dorian make a threat quite like that before and for a moment it caught him off guard.  But after only a nanoseconds hesitation, John crossed around the edge of the unfinished fence and trained his weapon on the figure standing there.  Dorian released his grip and moved to cross around the fence as well just as John said, steadily over his firearm trained on the face of the man before him, “And who might you be?”

Dorian’s cheek pulsed blue for a moment as he stared at the face that now stared back at him, arms held up in surrender under John’s unwavering weapon. “This…” he paused…”is Charles Dorchester.”

John squinted again against the morning sun and glanced left to right in confusion as he processed Dorian’s words, his gun never inching from where it was pointed at the nervous man’s face. 

“Wait.  This.  This?  Is Dorchester?”

“I am,” said the man shakily, arms still held up in surrender over his hunched back.  “Cha- Charles.  Charles Dorchester.”

“You’re dead,” John said, still squinting in confusion and cocking his head to the side.

“No,” said the man, still trembling. “Not... actually.”

By this point the MX had crossed in front of the fence, weapon trained on Dorchester, followed closely behind by Ben, weaponless but fists cocked and standing firm and at the ready to strike a blow.  When Charles saw him he dropped his hands and started to bring his fingertips to his lips in disbelief, momentarily forgetting his position.

“Oh my God, Ben!” He cried, hands held out tentatively before the BND.  When the Ben showed no glimmer of recognition he raised his hands again in surrender to show his passivity, but spoke again, softly.

“Ben. Oh my God, Ben.  I am so glad to see you.  So especially glad to see you looking so well, considering!  Oh thank God,” he nearly whispered again, verging strangely on tears.

John shook the confusion off and trained his gun more steadily on Charles than he had before, forehead scrunched over focused eyes.  “You’re one hell of a magician, Dorchester.  Nine out of ten people would swear you were dead…”

“Yes, about that.  I know that I have… quite a bit of explaining to do,” Charles implored, arms still raised in surrender.  “However, I think it more important that we focus on rescuing your friend right now.”

Charles nodded towards the warehouse, and at the moment, the steel doors started to swing wide.

Dorian grabbed John and slinked them both back behind the ivy-covered fence and crouched, followed quickly by the MX, the BND, and Dorchester.  From out of the doors and towards the field stumbled Rudy, hands bound behind his back and stepping tentatively towards the grass, followed by two smartly-dressed heavies and a third smaller man, slight but serious looking as he puffed out a column of smoke towards Rudy, all with guns trained on Rudy as they prodded him out and towards the field. 

Still crouched, John turned his head slightly towards Dorian and whispered, “send a message to Maldonado and tactical; tell them that Rudy is outside and they are on the move.  Tell them to stay back aways from the warehouse and not to come in guns blazing. Silence the sirens and move in stealthily so as not to be detected.”

A soft blue light, barely visible in the bright mid-morning sun, punctuated Dorian’s cheek, signifying to John that the message was sent.

Fifty meters away, Rudy stepped off the gravel of the parking lot and onto the damp, muddy lawn and started to walk, prodded along by the man in black with the gun trained at his head. 

John couched lower and held his breath so as not to be seen and glanced over at Dorian to telegraph a look that seemed to say,  _‘Well? Now what?’_

At that moment Dorian felt a movement behind him; before he could stop him, he felt Ben rise and raise his arms in surrender, stepping out wide from the cover of the fence and taking several long strides before calling out, “HEY!  Over here!  I know what you want and I know where it is!”

John and Dorian crouched even lower into the cover of the fence and yanked down Dorchester and the MX to do the same.  It didn’t seem to matter, because all of the attention of the two gunmen and their vaping companion was focused entirely on the BND advancing towards them, arms raised above his head.

“I believe it is right over there,” he said, one arm still raised above his head and the other pointing out vaguely towards the center of the field.  He continued to advance as he said again, “I know what you’re after, and it is right over there.”

Rudy silently shook his head NO from behind the the guards.  They had been following behind him and poking him with their guns when they’d heard the voice of the BND and turned towards the sound, leaving Rudy nearly unattended, but the one closest to Rudy suddenly remembered his charge and grabbed him and pointed the gun right at his head.

Ben stopped advancing, arms held high, and lowered one hand slowly to point a long slender finger at his own face. 

“This.  This is what you have been looking for, right?  The eye. My eye? My… camera?”

The man closest to the BND walked towards him and trained his weapon on him, eyeing him warily.

“Where is it?”

“Please. Allow me to show you,” Ben answered calmly. 

Ben linked his hands behind his head and began walking further into the field, eyes trained on the ground and gave a sideways glance to Rudy as they fell in step.  Rudy looked frightened; his fringe was wilder than usual and his forehead was beaded with sweat, partially due to the ever-intensifying sun but partially due to the nervousness that he was no doubt feeling at this point.

From their crouch behind the ivy, John whispered to Dorian, “Any face rec on these bastards?”

Before Dorian could speak, Dorchester huffed in a breathy whisper, “the little one with the e-cig is Bulat.  Yuri’s nephew. He ran security for him at Are Friends Electric.  He has been… essentially carrying out orders from higher ups in the Albanian gang since Yuri got thrown into the cubes.  The other two thugs are Yuri’s heavies; the tall one goes by T and the other one is Furci, I think.  I believe that these are the men who killed my colleague…my friend… Sebastian.  Sebastian Jones.”

Dorian and John glanced at one another and then back to Dorchester before John continued, “and Ben’s eye… the camera… has some sort of evidence on there of that?”

“Amongst other things, yes.  There is enough evidence on that camera to convict the whole Albanian gang of many offences.  That is why they have been trying desperately to kill me and to destroy Ben.  We know too much, and the eye is the proof.”  Charles voice trembled, barely above a whisper.

 “John, I cannot confirm via face rec; like these men, the men who killed Sebastian Jones wore glintz masks, but their relative heights and sizes are a close match to those of the men visible on the security camera in the elevator and in the lobby of the building where Jones was killed.”

Dorian and John had their eyes trained piercingly across the field on the BND, Rudy, and the three armed men; Ben appeared to be snaking a path in the field, weaving slightly left to right as if he was searching.

“John,” Dorian whispered from his crouch, still eyeing the scene, “Ben is stalling.  I pushed the coordinates from Rudy’s work station to him so he knows exactly where the missing eye is and could walk right to it, but he is avoiding it.  He’s leading them back towards the back of the building.”

“How far out is Delta Division?  Where’s our back up?”

As if on cue, John glanced over Dorian’s shoulder to see Detective Paul advancing up the sidewalk followed by his MX partner and several other MXs flanking the two of them, awaiting instruction.  They were followed by Maldonado and Stahl, guns drawn and postured in cautious stances.  They’d parked their cruisers and the tactical van behind John’s and were taking cover where they could.    

“John, Ben is messaging me.  He’s going to lead them behind the building for a moment and when he does, we should cross to the front of the building to come around the far side and sneak up on them from the rear.”

“Okay, that’s all well and good, but what about Rudy?  We can’t come in wild-west-style guns blazing... it’s not safe.”

Dorian’s cheek lit up again and he said, “he’s taking them back to the eye once our people are in place.  He’ll offer it to them in exchange for releasing Rudy.  Once he’s safe, we’ll move in.”

Suddenly, Charles spoke up in a frantic whisper.  “What about Ben?  Once they have what they want they will riddle him with bullets.  These men are heartless criminals and care about nothing beyond their main objective.”

“Charles,” Dorian whispered fiercely, “We’re not going to let that happen.”

John nodded towards Det. Paul and the MXs and gave a signal to cross in front of the warehouse and go around towards the back of the building on the far side.  John and Dorian covered them as they advanced down the sidewalk and across the gravel to the building to where they disappeared around the corner.

“John, I want to get in a little closer.  Charles, stay here and don’t move.”  

Dorian, John, and 681 sprinted to close the distance to the brick wall of the warehouse and crouched at the corner.  Sure enough, Ben led the trio back out from behind the warehouse into the field. 

Suddenly, Furci stopped and grabbed a handful of Rudy’s hair at the back of his head and yanked, pointing his gun at his neck.

“ENOUGH!” He barked, loud enough so that John could hear him clearly from his cover point at the corner of the wall.  “You will find it now or he dies!” He screamed again, yanking Rudy even harder and dropping him to his knees in the soggy grass.  Ben raised his hands and started to walk backwards a few paces and then stopped.  He bent down and pulled a muddy round object about the size of a golf ball out from a tuft of damp grass and held it up above his head.

“Ah. There it is.  Now.  You will let this man go and allow him to walk out of here and I will give it this to you.”

The men rapid-fired a few cryptic phrases in Albanian before Bulat responded.

“Fine.  We let your friend go.  You give us what we want.”  He was small but menacing, and his crooked, insidious smear of a smile seemed out of place on his otherwise youthful and innocent-looking face.

From where he knelt, hands tied behind his back and knees muddied from the saturated ground, Rudy cast a sideways glance at Ben that was filled with terror.  It was a look that said  _‘they will kill me and then they will destroy you,’_ but Ben’s face stayed expressionless.

“Get up.  And walk.”

Furci nudged him roughly with his gun, causing Rudy to stumble as he started to rise, but he made it to his feet and began walking with paced steps away from the field and towards the building.  T kept his gun trained on Rudy as he walked while the other two turned and pointed their weapons at Ben.

“Now.  The eye.”

Ben glanced down at the eye in his hand and then glanced back up to the guns that were trained at his chest.  He straightened and smiled his award-winning smile and held out his hand palm up, eye centered in the middle and looking like a dirty white gumball.

Bulat reached out tentatively to grab the eyeball from the BND and at the moment that he did, from behind them Rudy stumbled slightly on the gravel.  It was just the tiniest bit of a distraction but it was enough, and with dizzying speed, the BND swung his free hand up and smacked the underside of the hand that held the eyeball, sending it flying through the air.  With one whirlwind motion, Ben grabbed Bulat by the forearm and shifted his body weight so that he used him as a battering ram again Furci, sending them both stumbling to the side against each other and into the grass.  T whipped his gun towards the commotion from where it had been trained on Rudy and pointed it to fire at Ben when a shot rang out that grazed the side of the tall thug’s calf.  Another shot took out his weapon and he stumbled to the ground, wincing with pain as the blood began to seep on the leg of his trousers.  In seconds, the detectives and the MXs from Delta Division advanced from their cover around the sides of the building with their weapons trained on the scene, shouting out at the assailants to freeze and stay down.  Two swift kicks though the grass divested the two downed thugs of their weapons and they lay still, arms up in defeat.

As several MXs moved in to train their guns on the Bulat and Furci, Ben glanced down near his feet and picked up the eyeball.  Ben spotted John and Dorian heading towards him in the fray and Ben smiled, holding up the eyeball.  Arching back and drawing his right arm to him he deftly lobbed the eyeball towards John, calling out, “I do think that you will be needing this.”

John reached up with his left hand and caught the eye, gun still trained on the wounded thug laying before him on the ground who he’d shot in the leg and gun.

“Nice, Ben.  Nice work.” John smiled, and handed the eyeball to Dorian and wiped his hands on his cargos, grimacing slightly through the grin. “Blech. Still gives me the heebie jeebies.”


	20. Chapter 20

The precinct was a maze of activity. 

Bulat, Furci, and T were down in holding getting booked and getting their injuries addressed.  The expertly-placed shot that had grazed T’s calf had just been a warning and didn't really cause too much damage, but it had bled profusely and had required medical attention.  In the bullpen, John and Dorian stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Maldonado while Dorchester and Ben waited in Interro 4.  Although her face remained stoic, there was an unmistakable gleam of chuffed-up pride in Maldonado’s eyes.

“Well done, detectives.”

“We had help.  Lot’s of it.” John glanced at the glass walls of Interro 4 and nodded his head slightly towards that direction.

“It sounds like it.  For once, I’m glad to say I was wrong.” At this Maldonado did let the grin break through and then pursed up her lower lip with a slow thoughtful blink.

“Yeah, me too,” John exhaled a puff of relief. 

“Well, it’s not over yet; before we get ahead of ourselves, I need to know exactly what we can charge these guys with.  It sounds like we've got new evidence that goes way beyond what we initially anticipated.  Go talk to Dorchester and Ben, get the full back story from them on these Albanian guys and make sure to include as many details as possible in the report.  It sounds like we’re building a bigger case on this gang than we thought.  With any luck, we’ll have enough to go up the chain from Yuri to his bosses and knock down something pretty big.  We can start with kidnapping and go from there.”

“Captain, the evidence is contained within the memory of the BND eye.  Rudy is down in medical; they’re just checking him over and making sure he has no injuries and that he is not in shock.  Once Rudy is discharged and back at the lab we will have him extract the data from the BND eyeball and upload the evidence into the Delta Division server.”

“Thanks, Dorian.  I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.  John, please make sure that Rudy gets home safely before you two go off duty tonight.”

“Will do, Captain,” John said before Dorian could beat him to it, and he grinned his classic one-sided grin at Dorian.  Dorian just smiled and shook his head slyly side to side.

John and Dorian made their way towards Interro 4.  Inside, Charles and Ben sat catty-corner facing each other; Charles appeared to be chatting casually while Ben mostly listened.  As they approached the glass door of the interrogation room, Dorian paused John by placing a hand on his arm.

“John,” he began, “this isn't really over yet.”

“What d’you mean, Dee?”

Dorian glanced through the glass door at the BND and back at John.  “Ben.  He still has no memory.  Look at him.”

Sure enough, from their body language at the table, John could tell that Charles was obviously adopting a very familiar posture with Ben; he bowed his upper body towards Ben, elbows resting on the table top, and gesticulated as he spoke to illustrate whatever tale he was regaling.  Ben in turn, ever polite and attentive, smiled his world-class smile and nodded as Charles spoke, but he kept his hands folded cautiously in his lap and his ankles crossed. 

“Dorian, that’s not really our concern.  I mean, Dorchester’s a scientist -- a roboticist.  A very accomplished one, at that, I hear.  If there’s something wrong with Ben, he’ll fix it.  Look, our job is to solve the case, which we did -- although, I’m not sure if anyone actually noticed, but among other things today, we solved the murder of a guy who wasn't dead.  Anyway.”

Dorian looked at John, hand still resting on his forearm to still him.  He looked down at the spot where his hand rested on John’s arm and then looked up at John with so much emotion in his eyes that John thought the DRN might cry.  Was that even a possibility? Tear ducts on a robot?

“John.  What if… What if that was you and me?  Sitting in there, just like that; and someone had infected me with a virus that caused me to be unable to remember you or anything about our partnership?  About our… life together?  How would you feel if I did not know you?  Couldn't remember you, despite how hard you tried to make me recall?  Would you want…our help?”

John felt a flush come to his face.

Dorian continued, looking pointedly at John, adding, “You of all people should know how awful it is not to be able to remember.  I have read it to be like having an overwhelming feeling that you really just want to go home, even though you’re already there.”

Well, shit. 

Of course he would want help.  John averted his glare to the side for a moment’s thought and then looked back into the face of the DRN -- instantly the answer was plain.  He’d do anything to keep his partner safe and well, including but not limited to shooting an MX in the face, fixing his internal processor in the middle of a hostage situation with some gum and a paperclip, and essentially going to bat for him at any and every turn where someone tried to insult him or disrespect him or worse -- deactivate him again.

“Okay, Dorian.  Okay.  You’re right.  I give.  Let’s go talk to these guys and once they’re cleared, we’ll take them back to Rudy’s lab.  Between Rudy and Dorchester, they've got to be able to come up with something.”

Dorian’s face relaxed and he nodded in relief.  Before he let go of John’s forearm he gave it a tiny squeeze for emphasis, in the way that he had felt Stahl do to him on occasion to emphasize a point.  John locked Dorian’s gaze for another moment and gave him a tiny nod, firming up his lower lip.

John pushed the glass door open and strode into the interrogation room, Dorian shadowing his footsteps. As the door shut,  Dorian touched a solid blue-grey circle on the wall to turn the glass opaque and they sat down at the table.

John looked from Charles to Ben and pushed a breathy sigh through his nose, crossing his left ankle over his synthetic knee while leaning back in the chair; he pushed his hips forward, steepling his fingers in his lap. 

“Alright.  Start at the beginning,” John pronounced. “I have a feeling that this is going to be a long story, so forgive me if I get comfortable.”

Dorchester took a deep breath and exhaled it out of his nose and then began. 

He began by explaining that he had been a top-level scientist and had worked for a secretive arm of the British government in the tech development sector.  After a sudden and unexpected illness, his wife died and he left his position and came to the States with Ben to work with Sebastian Jones.  At the time, Sebastian had already established himself as an award-winning cybernetics designer, and Orillian Sapients, the robotics company that specialized in sex trade bots, was quickly becoming a household name. 

“His business was growing,” Charles explained, “and over the course of my tenure as primary consultant to the firm, I helped him develop nearly two dozen robotics patents, including the multi-award-winning blush response that cemented OS as the world leader in the industry.  As he gained more and more recognition, he was approached by many highly-profiled people – celebrities, politicians, heads of state, high profile criminals – who desired his product and became clients.  Although my background was primarily in the development of military bots, robots are robots; the developmental aspects are very similar at a fundamental level, whether it is the design of the perfect sex partner or the perfect spy – or the perfect police officer…”  Dorchester glanced at Dorian and smiled warmly and approvingly.

He continued, “After my wife died, I was… more than devastated.  I felt as if I had died myself.  It was so sudden.  I needed a new life, a fresh start.  Ben was a product of my years with the British government and had been scheduled for de-activation because his MX mode had a glitch in it; it kept slipping back into his regular BND mode, sometimes at unwarranted and inconvenient times.  He kept failing field tests and was determined to be… unfit.  He needed to be rescued, and I convinced the department to let me keep the BND instead of… turning him off.  So, we found each other at just the right time.  Not unlike you and Dorian, here.  For my personal use, I would never have a need for his VC combat mode, anyway, so I disabled it, for the most part.  I mean I didn't remove it from his programming, I just – fixed it so that it was disconnected and lay essentially dormant inside of his processors -- obviously it was more complicated than that but I think you get the idea.  Ben became my …butler, housekeeper, chef, friend, confident, flatmate…. You name it.  He was my sounding board -- my primary entertainment.  My… Pressure point.  He traveled with me here to the States and was by my side the whole time I developed my consulting role with Jones.  After Orillian Sapients was essentially dissolved and Sebastian split from his partner…”

“Lorenzo Shaw,” John chimed in.

“Precisely.  You know him?”

“Yes. Continue,” John nodded, glossing over the question.

“Yes, well, where was I.  Ah, yes; so, after Jones and Lorenzo Shaw split and started suing each other within an inch of their lives, I left.  I wanted no part of that war, so Ben and I branched out on our own.  I began refurbishing parts, buying and selling and trading tech, doing some consulting jobs here and there with some of the smaller robotics firms (mostly by word of mouth advertisement) and I started a website that sold parts and advertised private bot repair and consulting.  I even taught a class of Robotics Basics at the Community Center.  Ben became my inventory manager, my accountant, and my shipping and receiving expert.  It was slow at first, but eventually it began to pick up.”

“So, let me guess.  One day you were approached by these Albanian guys who said they’d make you rich beyond your wildest dreams and they made you an offer that you couldn't refuse.”

“Essentially, yes.  At the time, I really needed the money.  And the work.  It is funny how when I’m not working on developing artificial life, I feel less than human.”  He grinned at Ben at his own ironic joke and then continued.  “Anyway, they’d been clients of Jones and Shaw at Orillium Sapients, and they approached me.  I knew that they had pulled their account from OS but we had all assumed that they had found another supplier.  Turns out they were making their own sexbots…”

“And harvesting the skin of young women to do it, which is why Yuri is going to be spending a large portion of the rest of his unnatural life staring at the same four walls in the cubes while he thinks about what he’s done.”

“Yes, well…  I didn’t know that until much later.  I sold them parts and worked as a consultant to their scientists as they continued to develop their bots.” 

“For how long?”

“Probably about six months or so.  But then it turned out that sexbots were just a side dish for these people.  The Consortium (as Jones and Shaw had referred to them at OS) had hired their own roboticists and began to develop military bots – weapons bots – and they contacted me because they knew that was my original field of expertise.  I traded them parts, helped with a bit of consulting, until I realized what they were really trying to make.  And they were doing things that were illegal, expressly against the Dreyfus Laws, and I wanted no part of it.  I told them that I was done, that I was no longer going to trade with them or provide any manner of services for them… and that is when it got quite ugly, I’m afraid.”

Dorchester took a deep and troubled breath at the memory and stared at Ben as he continued.

“What they were doing was totally unauthorized, unpermitted, and I could foresee that people would get hurt. Many innocent people – Sebastian Jones amongst them, as you know – would be hurt or worse.  When Sebastian discovered what they were doing with the human skin they ended him very quickly, without so much as batting an eyelash.  When I told them I wanted out, that I wanted no part of anything that they were doing, they initially acted quite cordially, as if that was fine.  But one afternoon I came home to find my flat broken into and Ben gone.  They stunned him while he was charging and essentially kidnapped him from our home.  I was frantic and set out to find him.  A few hours later he was returned, infected with a virus that they threatened to activate if I refused to continue to help them.  The essence of the virus was an overriding command to kill me.  It was the perfect plan; those bastards would make Ben end me though a simple command if I attempted to end my professional relationship with them.  It kept me enslaved to them and kept their hands clean of my murder.  If I was found dead it would simply be a case of a rogue bot going crazy and killing.  Simple.”

Charles paused again, glancing down at his hands in his lap and continued, “logically you many think, ‘Well, no problem; simply deactivate the BND forever before he has a chance to carry out the threat,' but I couldn't – and they knew that.  They knew that I never would.  See, that was what made this such a perfect plan for them and such a nightmare for us,” he looked up at John and Dorian as he continued, “they realized that Ben was my pressure point and I that I could never…  would never….  be able to just destroy him, even to save myself.  I could never…. turn him off.  Put him away to gather dust like some old computer that had gone bad.  I could never kill my best friend, even if he was programmed to kill me.”

Charles looked from under a heavy cinched brow at Ben, eyes moist, and the emotion he felt for his friend was written there in volumes.  He took a deep and steadying breath before he continued, saying, “try as I might, I couldn't rid him of the virus.  I tried all that I knew how, even called on Lorenzo to see if he might have a few ideas, but it was beyond his scope.  Lorenzo was always better at the marketing then the development.  All I knew was what I didn't know, and based on that, I came up with a plan – a plan that I hoped would save us both and enable us to start over – again.”

Dorchester went on to explain that a few days before he was to make his last trade with the Albanians and announce that this would be their last deal, he re-registered Ben to a fake name and a fake address. 

‘Widmer Bretherton,” John interjected, thankful that his little hangover of the same name had long since abated.

“Yes, clever that, right?”

“Not to mention smooth and delicious,” John added.  Dorian glared at him.

Dorchester winked before continuing.  “I hypothesized that the way that the virus was set up was a logic-based command to terminate the person that the bot was registered to – namely me.  So I re-registered him to take me out of the picture.  But I wasn't sure if that was the case, so I also made arrangements to…well…be already dead, thinking that perhaps that would stop the virus.  Or at least stop Ben from trying to carry out the command.  I mean, it is impossible to kill someone who is already… dead.  Right?”

This time Dorian spoke up, saying, “Yes, about that; who was the person who died in London?” 

“Well, no one.  No one actually died at all.  My friend, John (JW) was the person found in London, but he wasn't actually dead.  I hired him.  I didn't really even hire him so much as I sent him on holiday.  A very nice holiday, as a matter of fact.   To be me.  You’d be amazed at how easy it is to get a fake passport, even in this day and age.  I made a mask of my face with a 3-D printer and fitted it to him, gave him my locator chip and my credit cards, and off he went.  JW didn’t die in a hotel room, but he made it look as if he had with a little help from my friends in the British government.”

“Ahhhh,” John said with a nod of enlightenment and Dorian blinked slowly in acknowledgement, blue lights flickering across his cheek.

“Yes, indeed; it wasn't very hard to convince a domestic from housekeeping that he had, or rather, that I had, slipped in the tub and taken a spill and had a blow to the head.  My friends at the BSS made sure that it looked like me and made it look like murder disguised as an accident.  They are the ones that exploded the DNA bomb.  Because of my dual citizenship, it was instantly an international incident, and it was pretty standard that they would take the body, and leave the rest of the investigation of the crime scene to Scotland Yard (an incredibly daunting task because of the DNA bomb). I know, it was a falsehood, but I had no choice.  There was no escaping these… insidious… ruthless… black-balling bastards!  Apologies.  My only freedom was in death.  So, once I was ‘confirmed dead’ in London, so to speak, I met with the Albanians, told them I was out –done forever -- and then Ben and I ran.  Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Ben switched into VC mode and I ran for my life.  We intentionally kept him off of the charger the night before so that he’d run out of power relatively quickly if he tried to attack me and kill me.  He… he went crazy.” Charles grasped his wrist and rubbed it slowly, looking to the side, as if remembering a moment of terror and pain.  “He picked me up, lifted me off the ground, and in a voice that I had never heard before, demanded to know where Widmer Bretherton was and also demanding that I relinquish his eye.  He… beat me, saying if I wouldn't help him find Bretherton than he’d kill me too.”

Ben leaned in, eyes locked on Dorchester, and frowned, blinking.  “Charles.  I am sorry.  So very sorry if I hurt you.”

Dorchester smiled a sideways grin under sad and tired eyes and released his wrist to pat the BND’s arm where it now rested on the table.  “Not to worry, friend.  It wasn't you.  It was your body, but your processes were… totally overridden by this horrible…thing…inside of you.  I am glad to see you looking more like yourself again.  Well.  Mostly like yourself,” he added, with a quick nod to the DRN eye still housed in his face.

Dorchester took one more breath and continued, “So, I managed to get away from him during our scuffle and ran to the warehouse and locked myself inside.  I disabled all of the security cameras and hid so Ben would be unable to access the feed and see me.  Once inside, I hid in the office, and not too long after I arrived, Ben found me there.  He crashed through the doors and from my vantage point above the main storeroom, I could see that he looked a frightful mess, as if he had run blindly through the woods, like he’d run straight towards me for miles, circumnavigating nothing to get there.  I hid in the locked office above the warehouse, not moving and barely breathing, and basically prayed that he would run out of power.  Which, finally, he did.”

“And the eyeball?  How did that wind up in the field?”

“Ah, yes.  The eye.  The bloody eye of it all; well, right after I made the announcement to the Albanians and we fled, I took the eye from Ben.  It had tons of evidence on it that I just knew I would need to have in order to get out of all… of this.”  He motioned his hand back and forth, finger pointed, to illustrate his words.  “I assume that is how Ben found me at the warehouse when he was raging in his VC mode, commanded to kill.  He must have tracked the GPS signal to that point. I figured that he would track the eye, so before he got there, I tossed it up onto a top shelf at the warehouse, and he climbed up there after it and ran out of power.   After Ben powered down at the warehouse, I got back up there, got the eye, and ran to a place where I could hide out.  JW had my locator chip in London so I was essentially off of the grid, other than the eye.  But I dropped it; I fell as I was running and it must have slipped out of my pocket.  I prayed that I would be able to come back and find it before the Albanians could find it or me.  I hid in an abandoned place by the river, kept a hood drawn around me; I stayed off of streets and kept my head down to avoid any CCTV cameras.  I only came out to phone in the break-in and try and find the eye where I had dropped it.”

“Of course.  That was you, too.”

“Yes.  I had acquired the Darknet VoIP to communicate freely with the Albanians and that’s how I reported the break in.  I actually did that from the warehouse and then I left again through the field.  I needed to have a police presence at the warehouse so that the Albanians would know that you were informed.  I was sure that they would come snooping around to try and find us and kill us, and I needed to know that Ben would be looked after.  I didn't know what would happen after he powered down.  I wasn't sure how the virus would affect him.  This morning I was back in the field trying to find the eye, when I saw the Albanians show up with your friend.  I hid in the brush, and that’s where you found me.  That’s it.  That’s the whole story.”

John was stiff and spent.  He had listened to Dorchester fill in all of the details of the mystery for the last twenty minutes and his mind was mush.  Each new detail added another page the report that he would soon be putting together and his mind swam.  He’d never been so thankful for his partner’s eidetic memory as his was at that moment.

His memory. 

His precious memory.

John glanced over at Dorian for a moment before standing and stretching his leg.  Dorian rose with him and said, “We thank you for your cooperation with all of this.  Initially, we will be charging these men with multiple counts of kidnapping and extortion, but the evidence that you have provided us will enable our division to build a case against the Consortium for multiple accounts of the violations of the Dreyfus Laws.  Also, we may have enough evidence at this point to also get T and Furci for the murder of Sebastian Jones.”

“I am glad to be of service, “Dorchester smiled appreciatively.  He glanced over at Ben and said, “C’mon then, Ben.  Let’s get you home, shall we?”

“Wait.” John looked at Dorchester with a pointed but tender look in his eyes.  “We want… we want to help you.  If we can, I mean.  With Ben’s memory.  Also, let’s not forget; the virus is still in there.  It’s not safe for you to take this bot out into the world and back into your home until it’s out of his system;  what if they reactivate it again?”

Dorchester’s eyes widened with the realization and he rolled them incredulously, sighing, “Oh my God.  You’re right.  I—I nearly forgot.”  He cast a troubled glance at Ben and then looked frantically back to John and Dorian, saying, “What do you suggest?”

This time it was Ben who rose confidently, and the movement caused Dorchester’s gaze to travel towards him.  “Ben? What are you doing?”

“I think that we know someone who can help,” and he smiled his best First-Class Steward smile.


	21. Chapter 21

The moment that he’d been released from medical, Rudy caught the first available ride back to the lab, which happened to be in the squad car of Detective Richard Paul and his MX.   By the time he’d been checked and double checked to confirm that he had no injuries (Maldonado had insisted that the EMTs as well as an in-precinct attending physician be thorough) the sun was setting and he was losing daylight.  He didn't want to wait to retrieve the evidence until the following day.  He was already preparing to extract the pictures and video from the eyeball when John and Dorian stepped purposefully in through the side door, followed by Ben and Dorchester.

“Ah, Detectives.” 

“Rudy.  Y’okay?  How’re you feeling?” John asked, genuinely concerned.

“Fine!  No, really, I feel fine!  Never better, actually.  Quite an invigorating day, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Oh really?  That’s good…”  John narrowed his eyes and cocked his chin quizzically, glancing at Dorian.

“Oh, Yes.  Never better.  And frankly, I’m worried about the albinos.”

“Albanians.”

“Yes, of course.  I’m afraid I might have over done it a bit; I was fairly intimidating – perhaps even overly so.  Did you know it took three of them to kidnap me and hold me at bay?  Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in state of shock right now; I was a touch heavy-handed with them.  Ah, well; all in a day’s work for Dr. Rudolpho Lom, at your service.  And, by the way, everyone laughed at me about the banker’s button for the silent alarm, didn't they?  Didn't they! Well, who’s laughing now, mate? I’d say I was, don’t you think?”

Dorian and John glanced at each other and shared a grin.

“Well, I am glad to hear that you are doing so … so well, considering everything.  In all of the excitement at the warehouse this afternoon, I am not sure that you had an opportunity to meet Mr. Charles Dorchester.”  John gestured to Dorchester and he stepped forwards towards Rudy and extended his hand politely.

“Charles Dorchester.  At  _your_ service, Rudolpho.”

“Ah, well, it’s Rudy, actually….  Most people just call me Rudy.  Look, um… I’m sorry if this is a bit… Well, rude, actually; but I thought that you were…” Rudy glanced up towards the ceiling questioningly from under a slanted brow until he continued, “…well, I thought that you were dead.”

“I was not actually dead, but for a moment there I thought that I was really going to become  _quite_ dead, and I might have done, if it had not been for the work your colleagues.  Also, I cannot thank you enough for all that you have done for my friend Ben, here.  Your work is remarkable.  I know that you tidied him up after John and Dorian found him in the warehouse, and I am forever in your debt.”

“Well, it is and was my pleasure.  Again, it’s all in a day’s work.”

“Indeed,” Charles acknowledged with a curt head nod.

“So Rudy,” John chimed in, “Charles here really speaks your language.  You familiar with the blush response? In bots?”

“Ahem,” Rudy coughed and cleared his throat while subconsciously adjusting his collar with a nervous tug to the side, saying, “am I ever…” 

“Well, this man was integral to the development of that particular technology.  He’s a world-class roboticist.”

“Oh, my, well!” Rudy’s demeanor shifted, his face taking on the look of a fan meeting their favorite rock star, and said, “Well done, sir; very well done, indeed.  May I shake your hand, sir!”

“Thank you.  Yes, I’m very proud to have been a part of the project.  Yet, I must say, although I was quite capable of bringing a rise of flushing color to the cheeks of a highly developed sex bot at the height of passion, try as I might, I am unable to remove that potentially lethal virus from my friend here.”

Rudy nearly jumped with a light clap of his hands followed by double snaps of his fingers using both hands and blurted,

“Ah, yes!  About that…  I have a theory.”

“I have several myself, but I am looking forward to hearing yours, so please do go on.”

Rudy crossed his arms over the thin frame of his chest and brought his right hand up to stroke his chin thoughtfully as he stared at the glass dome ceiling in the lab.

“The virus is in his combat mode, correct?  And it is a sequence virus.  So it seems obvious that in order to eradicate the virus we will have to switch him into that mode,” Rudy observed. 

“Yes, most likely.”

“My theory is that there is some sort of voice command, or a word, or something of that nature that completes the sequence once he is in VC mode.”

“Interesting.  To be honest, I had a similar thought, actually.  This virus was implanted inside of him by the roboticists for the Consortium and it is an instruction to kill – to kill me, specifically.  I theorized that the command was constructed using the registrated end user as the target.  That is why I reregistered him to a fake name; my theory was that the command was designed to instruct the bot to kill the person who matches the name on the registration.”

Dorchester took a breath and with a look that was matter of fact, if not slightly cold, he added, “Honestly, I only concluded that because if I was going to design this virus, that is how I would have done it.”     

“So, it would seem logical, that the virus is completed once the target is dead,” Rudy said thoughtfully through a leap of logic.

The bloom of an idea spread across Dorchester’s face as he began to follow Rudy’s aligned conclusions.  “Indeed…” he said slowly, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully before he added, “so, if we switch him into him into the VC combat mode, and tell him that the person he is registered to is dead, it might complete the code.”

John, who was not a scientist but prided himself on the occasional clever idea, added, “We could even go so far as to have Dorian register a fake death certificate in the name of Widmer Bretherton and have him push the information to Ben as soon as he’s en mode.”

“Done,” Dorian said, blue maze lighting up his cheek.

“And then we switch him off before he can harm himself (or anyone else) or self destruct, or do anything else inappropriate and then bring him back up in standard mode and see what happens,” Rudy finished.

“The Albanians are clever, but they are not very smart,” Dorchester said with a wink.

“Then, once he’s back on, see what he knows….” John added with a nod of his head.

“Yes; when he comes back on he will default back to his standard mode and if the virus is eradicated, then he should be able to access all of his memories,” Rudy added.

There was a moment of silence where they all stood and considered until John said, “Well? You guys sure this is gonna work?”

“No,” Dorchester sighed, eyes locked on Ben’s face.  Ben blinked quietly over one steely gray-blue eye flecked with greens and amber hues, and one electric-blue DRN eye. “No, it’s just a theory.”

“Well,” Rudy sighed, “it sounds …totally ridiculous, but then again, most things are.”

“So, let’s try it, shall we?” Ben said.  “We have nothing to lose.  This is probably the least invasive thing that we can try to get rid of this, and if it works, I will be cured.”

“I will be standing at the ready with the kill switch to deactivate him if it gets hairy.” After a moment Rudy added, “…and we should probably strap him to the table.”

Dorian and Ben looked at each other and then at Rudy as if to say, ‘ _are you serious?_ ’ but they both remained silent; it was John who responded, saying, “Well, if it’ll make you feel better – sure, strap him down!  Knock yourself out!  But it won’t matter….  FLIPPED A VAN…” John mouthed silently from behind his knuckles to Dorchester with an incredulous head nod towards Dorian and an amused eye roll, fingertips resting against his cheek.

Rudy led Ben to a table with an open head rest and gestured for him to lie down.  Once the BND was prone, Rudy reached for a compact blue vinyl bolster pillow and slid it under the BND’s neck, adjusting it until it supported the back of his head and shoulders.

“Comfy?” Rudy asked with a cocked head, and the BND nodded at him then righted his head to stare at the ceiling, eyes filled with steely resolve.

“Right, then; here we go.” Rudy hooked a cord into the data port in the back of Ben’s head and then scuttled around to his workstation, elbows crooked while his fingertips worked the air.  Dorchester moved to join him so he could survey the screen.

“Right, so, I am going to control the shift to the VC combat mode from my terminal, and if anything goes awry, I’ll try to control it from here with commands if possible.  We’ll see.  I can definitely turn it off and on.  Well, theoretically.”

“Fantastic.  I feel better already,” John glowered.

With a quick glance to Dorian, John drew his piece and leveled it with his chin, and stepped his feet slightly wider and slightly to the front and back, shoulder-width apart; he focused on the table, eyes pierced in a concentrated stare. 

“Dorian, go ahead and train a gun on Ben and be ready to fire.”

“John, I don’t think that this is nec--”

But John cut him off, saying, “Please, Dee.  Just do it.  I don’t want to hurt Ben any more than you do, but… safety first.  Captain’s orders, don’t forget.  Look, I’m really looking forward to walking out of here unharmed and going to get noodles after this, so just…” John tilted his head quickly to the right to indicate towards Ben and bobbed into his knees slightly to deepen his stance, and added, “Just, please.”

Eyes fixed on the screen, Rudy peppered the keyboard with the nimble fingers of a person who had typed literally hundreds of thousands of words in his lifetime and said, after a steadying breath, “Okay.  Here goes… everything.”

The BND’s body language shifted and stiffened, seeming almost to grow slightly larger and denser outwards about an inch on all sides from the core.  He sat up and snapped the leather straps at the buckles like they were rotted rubber bands, and held his back ram-rod straight, eyes grayed over and vacant like the gaze of an MX. The cord running from the data port at the back of his head pulled taught with the motion and tipped a tray of tools over with a loud crash.  Dorian holstered his gun and stood straight and said, calmly, “Widmer Bretherton is dead.”  As he spoke, his cheek sparkled blue and he pushed the fake death certificate file to Ben.  Dorian then took an intentionally casual stance and leaned against a stainless steel counter top, extending his legs and crossing his ankles, all the while glancing at his fingers and scrutinizing his synthetic nail beds, as if to inspect an out-of-place cuticle (even though it was not a possibility; DRNs didn’t have cuticles.  It was a learned behavior, modeled after a stance he had seen John take when he was trying to look intentionally bored with whatever Det. Paul was saying).

“Dorian!” John hissed, crouched low into a stance with his feet planted wide and his hands in position on his gun as he pointed it skyward. “What are you doing?” John hissed again with a fierce whisper.

“Shutting down the virus, hopefully,” Dorian said, plainly, with no tribulation at all.

Ben started to stand and Dorian just pushed him calmly back down on to the horizontal surface.  Rudy stepped up beside them and pointed the activation wand at the BND’s ear and powered him off, whispering, “Down, boy!” fiercely  under his breath and stepped back, bouncing left and right on the balls of his feet like a street fighter.  The BND stilled instantly.

After a few moments, Dorian casually turned to Rudy and said, “Turn him back on.  It’s safe.”

Rudy hesitatingly pulled the blue cord out of the data port at the back of the BNDs head; he touched the activation stick to the left ear of the BND and mouthed, “Arise,” soundlessly, as was his habit.

Ben blinked his eyes open and looked up from the table, looking slightly stunned.

“Ben?” Dorchester stepped in close to peer at the BND.  “Ben?” He asked again, touching the sleeve of his shirt and coming to stand beside the table so that he hovered over the groggy bot as he got his bearings.

After a moment’s pause, the BND blinked and looked up at Dorchester and said, “I'm afraid it didn't work.” Dorian and Rudy glanced out each other with concerned and disappointed frowns.

“It didn't work,” he said again, swinging his legs off of the table and rising to a sitting position.  “I mean, if it had, I would know that your favorite food is takeaway chicken curry from Dosa 'n' Chutny, your favorite football club is West Ham United, and our first non-essential evening outing was Martinis and Matisse at the Tate…” his voice cracked with static and they threw their arms around each other.

“Hello,” Ben said, voice muffled by the hug, eyes closed into a smile.

Dorchester’s eye’s brimmed with tears as he clutched him close, “My friend.  My best, best, best friend.  Where have you been?”

“I have no idea,” Ben answered, still smiling, eyes still closed, arms still wound tightly around Charles.


	22. Chapter 22

“So!  Where to, man?” Dorian asked amiably.  Dorian and John slid into the cruiser and shut the doors simultaneously. 

After the success at the lab and exchanges of ‘thanks and we’ll be in touch,’ John had bee-lined for the cruiser and peeled out of the parking space at the lab so fast that the tires had squealed, causing Dorian to give him a questioning glance as they sped along.  At the time John had just grinned and had headed straight to his favorite noodle spot to make his earlier wish come true.  He had been living on caffeine, adrenaline, and charging station snacks for the better part of a week, and once the case was solved and the virus eradicated from Ben, he couldn't wait to get started on his post-case wind down (or the **PCWD** , as he and Dorian had come to call it).  As their partnership had developed, John and Dorian had fallen into familiar patterns of little rituals, and noodles after a case was just one of them.  Dorian had watched John polish off a steaming pho and a few imported beers plus a shot of something that smelled caustic and looked murkishly milky, after which he had handed Dorian the keys with half-lidded grin.

“Home.  Er, my place,” John specified.  The clarification hadn't been necessary because Dorian knew what he meant, and he clicked the car into gear and pulled out onto the street.  The evening was warm and John had a lovely toasty buzz thrumming through his veins that was two parts alcohol, one part satisfaction, and one part balmy summer night.  He didn't even mind when Dorian bubbled his lips into the breeze of the open window as he drove along at exactly the posted speed limit, or when he intermittently sang to himself quietly in Korean.

Just as they pulled in to park at John’s place, Dorian’s face spread into a grin and a quiet chuckle escaped his lips while the disco lights flicked up his cheek.

“What’s funny?” John asked, as he lolled his head towards Dorian, relaxing his cheek against the head rest of the passenger seat.

“Oh, nothing significant.  Just got a text from Ben, that’s all.”

John sat up a little straighter in the seat, eyes still locked on Dorian but they narrowed slightly as he said, “A text?  He paused, expecting Dorian to volunteer whatever information had been exchanged, and when he didn't, John continued, “Well? What'd it say?”

Dorian switched off the engine, and gave John his, ‘Not That It’s Any of Your Business’ look, but softened it at the end with the ghost of a grin before adding, “It was nothing, really.  Just thanks and be in touch and all that.  I messaged him earlier that you and I would be in contact as we were reviewing the evidence and bringing these guys up on charges.  He messaged back that he would be in touch and would hook up with Rudy to get his regular eye back and then return my spare eye.  Then he texted ‘thanks for the use’ and I messaged back ‘no problem, man.’  Then I messaged him to keep the trousers.  Told him you never wear them.  He just texted back that he would stay in touch and that he couldn't wait to get out of them and get a good-night’s charge.”

Dorian grinned again, and John could see the reflection of his cheek as it lighted blue against the driver-side window in the darkened cabin of the cruiser.

By this point, John’s grin had faded and he said, flatly, “So, you and Ben are texting?”  It was more of a statement than a question, and an ugly bud of jealousy blossomed across his chest (fueled partly by the alcohol, but nevertheless).

“Yeah, man.  I mean, we still have details to wrap up about the case, and Ben will need his eye back once the evidence is extracted, but sure.  We’ll be keeping in touch,” Dorian pronounced plainly and rose from the driver seat, moving to shut the door.

John rose from the passenger side of the car and shut the door with slightly more force than was probably actually necessary.

“Keep in touch?” John mocked sarcastically across the hood of the cruiser, “what are you going to do, have a… a charge-over (John threw up air quotes around ‘charge over’) and do each other’s hair?  More dancing lessons, maybe?”

“Am I detecting jealousy, John? I am familiar with the emotion, but…”

Dorian left the thought unanswered as John spat back though a put-on grin, “Of course I'm not jealous, why would I be jealous?"  John scowled agitatedly, clearly jealous.  “Besides, you shouldn't be texting and driving.”

It sounded so pathetic coming from his mouth that John pivoted on the ball of his left foot to hide his face, and headed to the entrance, rolling his eyes at himself at how ridiculous the reprimand had sounded once he was facing away from Dorian.

Dorian smiled quizzically at the back of John’s head in response started slowly after him.

Dorian followed John’s path to the entrance and watched as John grumbled at the key pad as he dialed the digits.  Dorian stayed silent, two steps behind John as they walked into the building and to John’s front door. 

Once inside John’s apartment, Dorian tossed the keys to the cruiser into a glass bowl by the entrance and closed the door behind him.  John shucked his jacket and hung his shoulder holster over a chair before going to the fridge and grabbing a beer.  He uncapped it against the corner of the center island and took a swig, plinking the cap into a bottle cap-filled oatmeal canister inside the cabinet.        

Finally he turned to look at Dorian, suddenly unsure as to why he had felt so petulant about the texting thing.

“John,” Dorian finally said, plainly.  “Look; I like Ben, but he's not you.  You're my best friend.  My partner. No man or android will ever change that.”  Dorian looked at John as he always did, heart open.  “Do you remember earlier today when I said that there were two things in my world that mattered more to me than anything else, and that the first was my job as a police officer?”

“Yes.  I do recall…” John swallowed, heart thumping against his chest.

“The second thing is you.  Other than my service to the community as a member of the Delta Division Non-Biological Squad, you are the most important thing in my… existence.”     

“Dorian…” John huffed and almost started to protest before he paused for a moment’s thought. Was this his best friend?  A machine?  A mandroid who charged instead of slept and only had emotions because of a manufactured soul program? Was it?  John took another swig of beer and then stared down intently at the bottle in his hands as he tried not to think too hard about what to say.

Eyes glazed over and still fixed through a haze on the bottle, John started, “Thanks, Dor.  I…” but as he raised his eyes he was quite suddenly interrupted as two surprisingly soft lips met his in a tender kiss.  The kiss was chaste, unimaginably velvety lips pressed closed mouth to his closed mouth, but a kiss is a kiss, and John’s eyebrows shot up to meet his hairline in surprise.

“Dorian!” He huffed and started to protest, and then was cut off by another kiss, whereby he slowly began to realize that he didn't want to protest.  The kiss was… nice? Smooth?  It had started so quickly that at first it almost didn't register.   Dorian just slid in and kissed him! One thing about Dorian that made him unlike a human, but maybe in some ways better than human, was his openness.  A lifetime of relationships, platonic and otherwise, had taught John that humans played thousands of useless little games in their minds about everything -- spatial relations, touch, sensuality, what to do, what not to do, embarrassment – unlike Dorian, who was refreshingly untainted by preconceived notions and honest almost to the point of awkward at times.  He was just… Dorian.  He gave himself completely and openly and unabashedly, without ever trying to hide or deceive. When he felt it, he went with it.

Dorian leaned back from the kiss without breaking eye contact.  He searched John’s eyes and body language for signs of protest, scanning his face to see his emotions and scanning his vitals to gauge his reactions, and leaving John with nowhere to hide.  When he met no resistance, Dorian leaned in and kissed him again, this time slightly more fervently, and his arms slid around John’s waist till his right forearm was pressed perfectly into the small of John’s back, hand splayed against his ribs and rounding his waist on the other side, while the palm of his left hand slowly slid up the muscles to the left of John’s spine, thumb pointed upward as it made lazy left-to-right sinuations and traveled up towards his neck.  John’s eyes rolled back in his head to feel the weight and strength of these arms pressed around him, the steady touches relieving all of the tension trapped in his back, and his hands betrayed him, sliding up Dorian’s chest plate to where they wound around his neck and up the back of his head, pulling him in. 

The kissing was strange but not unpleasant, John noted to himself.  Dorian’s mouth was to a human mouth like a movie set was to a real living room; it looked and felt nearly identical, but when John’s tongue slid languorously over Dorian’s tongue he got a distinct feeling that there was nothing but a gap beyond the back of the line of perfect synthetic teeth.  Before he could think too hard about whether anyone had ever been electrocuted from snogging an android, or worse -- fired for kissing their division-issued non-biological partner -- Dorian pushed a sweet and subtle moan out through his nose, tinged with the tiniest hint of static, and it was simultaneously the sweetest, sexiest, dirtiest, and most wanton sound that John had ever heard, and a throbbing pulse went straight through his cock, moistening him.    ‘ _Oh well,_ ’ he thought; ‘ _if I get electrocuted, at least I’ll die happy_ .’ 

Dorian broke the kiss and pulled back away from John slightly.  The lights on the side of his face thrummed like the Vegas strip at Christmas.  He settled his hands on John’s waist, eager eyes locked on John’s, thumbs trailing lazy circles.  John’s eyes in turn had dilated, and shocked flush colored his cheeks.

“The data port… at the back of my head… is especially sensitive,” he whispered quietly.

“Really,” John said incredulously in a huskier-than-normal tone. “You mean here?” he whispered, and pulled Dorian in for another kiss while he ran his fingers up the back of the android’s head and found the dip with his middle finger.  Dorian pushed another moan and breathed ‘yes’ into the kiss.  The disco lights shimmied slowly up Dorian’s cheek as he broke the kiss again, arms still wound around John.

“I’m off duty, John,” Dorian said straight-faced, though there was a touch of something coy in his tone.  His blue eyes shone with excitement as he gazed downward for a moment and then back up at Kennex intensely.

“Oh, good.”  John’s heart was beating thunderously under his shirt and he teased the DRN to ease the tension.  “Does that mean you’re not going to arrest me for breaking department protocol?  …cuff me, take me in?”  John could barely keep a straight face for the boyish grin that stretched his cheeks wide.

Dorian smiled, more at the look on John’s face than at the words as he responded, “No, John.  I’m not cuffing you.  I just meant that I am logged out of the Delta Division Servers for the night.  I’m offline.  From the precinct.”

John closed his eyes for a moment as the realization of what Dorian was saying dawned on him. 

They were alone.

Away from all other eyes, away from the stress of the workday; here, in John’s dimly-lit kitchen, it was just the two of them, and the night was young.  The liquid courage coursing through John wasn't hurting things, either.     

When John opened his eyes again they were filled with want, but there was an underscore of apprehension in there, too.

“Dorian…is this…okay?  I mean, is it all right?”

“What do you mean?” Dorian asked, arms still tightly wound around John, hands still roaming his back over his shirt.

“This.  Us.  …kissing.”

“Does it feel okay?  Are you all right?”

John smiled again, recognizing a segue when he saw one, and said, “I don’t know, let me try it again to make sure…”

And with that, John cocked his head slowly to the side and closed the distance between their faces, nudging their noses together for a moment before their lips met in another smooth and soft kiss.  One kiss was followed by another, and then another, and then finally another at another angle, until they opened their mouths to let their tongues slid against each other in one slow and glorious deep tongue kiss that left John breathless and Dorian nudging at John’s cheek for more.

As they kissed, Dorian scanned John’s vitals, thrilled at the evidence of what he was doing to John.  John’s heart rate had increased, his temperature had risen, and rush of chemicals had been released into John’s bloodstream that painted an unmistakable picture of sexual arousal.  Dorian also noticed a pressure building between them as the blood began to pool in the warmest part of John’s trousers, clearly causing a bulge to begin forming.  Dorian thought about his own equipment, thought about that moment in the cruiser where he’d declared that he probably did the same thing with his cock that John did with John’s –nothing—and decided that it was time to do something with it.

Dorian pulled from the kiss and said, “John, may I have your permission… to try something?”

“That depends, Dorian.  Does it involve me getting fired or electrocuted?  ’Cause those are deal breakers…”

Dorian chuckled, deep and light at the same time, a perfect laugh, John mused, and tilted his head slightly. 

“John, you are the most important person in my life.  I want to please you, and I want to experience pleasure with you.  May I have your permission?”

“Wow. You’re really a smooth talker, Dorian.”  Once again, John was left thinking, ‘ _Robot, Robot, Robot, Fuck_ .’

Dorian tilted his head till his forehead touched John’s with feather-light softness, and moved his head slowly left to right so that his nose nudged sensually across John’s, back and forth, back and forth.  He repeated himself, more softly this time and in a slightly deeper voice, the sound of which made John hold his breath in the shallow of his chest.

“John, I was made to feel, and I want to feel you.  May I… have your permission…?”

John breathed a shaky breath and whispered, “yes,” as he pressed the side of his face into Dorian’s synthetic yet surprisingly warm and soft cheek.

Dorian lowered his head even further still, raking his forehead across John’s kiss-swollen lips and let his hands slide down from John’s waist over his hips and further still till they were sliding across John’s buttocks and stilled for a moment.  John saw a close up blurred haze of blue lights from where he was still pressed cheek to forehead and murmured, “Dorian? …y’okay?”

“Yes, John.”  He tilted his head back up so that they were eye to eye again and whispered, “I've never done this before, man…”

“Yeah, well… me neither.  I mean, you know… with…” and John stopped, not sure how to continue. _'With an android?  A synthetic? A robot? A partner? A man?   All of the above?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, and not since the Police Academy.'_

“But you've been intimate before,” Dorian stated quietly.

John started to say something snarky and stopped himself. He’d come this far -- no need to ruin a tender moment.  Instead, he just nodded as if to say _'obviously...'_

“Okay, give me a minute.  Will you wait for me, John?”  Dorian was slinky and languid again, rubbing lips across John’s skin to the sensitive part of his ear, and John couldn’t know if this was a learned behavior or just a reaction that Dorian was generating from the situation, but John knew what it was doing for him and that was, specifically, that it was making him even hornier than he already was.

“Of course,” John pronounced, surprisingly tenderly.

Dorian stepped back and blinked several times, head cocked slightly.  John took the opportunity to toe off his shoes one by one, then his socks, and lift his shirt over his head so that his stood before Dorian shirtless and in his black cargo pants and bare feet.  The cargo pants were not as roomy as they’d been a moment ago

Suddenly, Dorian was looking at John more lasciviously than he had been before. “Remember what you said to me about breaking a rule?” He’d taken a moment to un-archive and unzip a file in his system that contained the same code string present in the sex bots sequencing and loaded into his active programs.  He’d managed to save the file surreptitiously into his archives during their case involving the sex bots with the human DNA in case he ever had the use for it and now seemed as good a time as any.  He’d have to remember to unload the program and re-archive it out of his active files before his next diagnostic or Rudy might give him hell.

“Well…  I just broke one.  What do you think?” Dorian struck a sexy pose, cocking his head to one side and exposing the long lean line of his neck.

“I was right.  It does look good on you.  As a matter of fact, it looks so good on you that I think that I want to break one, too.”

John leaned in and looked at Dorian low and through his eyebrows with an expression that said fierce, but when his lips and nose touched Dorian’s, the contact was soft and tender.  As two smooth, exploratory, and incredibly intimate pairs of lips pursed, puckered, nipped, and caressed, two hearts, one organic and one man-made, sped up.

“John, I didn't have desires… I didn't desire for anything… until you turned me on.  The only things that I have ever really wanted were to be a good cop and be a good partner to you, and I was programmed to want that.  But the only thing that I desire… truly want with all my synthetic soul… Is you.   I want you.  I understand what that means now.  I… I can’t even really explain how.  I was made to feel, but I don’t know if I ever really knew what that even meant until I started to feel the things I feel…with you.  Now I feel as if the reason I was made to feel was so that I could feel the things I feel for you.  You are the reason I was made to feel.  You are so gorgeous, with all your perfect imperfections.” He pushed the air our of his synthetic lungs in a sigh and closed the remaining distance between the two of them; he bent sideways to gently kiss and nip at a tiny but pebble-pert nipple, suckling and tonguing with abandon.

“Dorian, stop talking…” John breathed, and his hands roamed to the back of Dorian’s head as he lolled back at the waves of pleasure emanating from his chest.  John’s nipples were extremely sensitive, and just when it was almost too much to take, Dorian pressed a firm thumb over the suckled nipple and moved his mouth and his attention to the one opposite, giving it the same treatment.  Did he know how sensitive his nipples were, or was it just an incredibly good guess? It didn't surprise John, though, and he suppressed a deep chuckle; of course Dorian would know exactly what he liked, what he wanted, and when too much was just enough.  He was the best partner ever, after all, and it so it would follow that Dorian would anticipate John’s every need in this realm as well as he did out in the field.

John’s dick was fully hard now and crowding his trousers, and Dorian pressed himself to John’s chest while he ghosted kisses into the crook of his neck and slid the heel of his hand down John’s chest and stomach, over trousers, and palmed the erection through the pants.  He traced the outline of John’s cock till he could feel each nub and ridge and rubbed it while he brought his mouth up to John’s for another hot and achingly perfect kiss.  Dorian began to feel a sensation that was new to him, foreign to him, and it started at the underside of his perfect cock and spread up and back, to the tip of the head, back through the shaft, across the underside of his synthetic balls (one hung slightly lower than the other) and back through the crease between his ass cheeks.  The growing warmth and wetness was – different – immensely pleasurable, he cataloged through the kisses, and a throbbing started just at the underside of the head of his penis.

“Wow,” Dorian moaned, and laughed a giddy and gorgeous laugh; it was heady, John noted, as if someone had plied his DRN with too much champagne. 

“What is it, Dorian?” John breathed.  “What’s happening?”

“John, I've… I've never felt this before.  I’m… throbbing… and vibrating… down there.  It’s pulsing… and the… tip... The tip is vibrating!  I didn't even know I could DO that!” Dorian was almost shouting.

John laughed huskily as he rolled his hips, pressing himself against Dorian to feel the vibrations coming off of him and said, “Well, that makes two of us!”

John thought of the perfectly sculpted cock that Dorian had so matter-of-factly unfolded out of his zipper in the squad car several weeks back, and the thought of it pulsing, vibrating, and throbbing in Dorian’s pants nearly undid him.  He untangled himself from Dorian’s kisses and embraces and slid his hands up under the dark navy parka, exposing his shoulders and letting it slide to the floor.  He repeated the motion and slid his hands tentatively under Dorian’s shirt to slide it up and lift it over the android’s head.  He gasped to see his perfectly formed partner naked from the waist up, gleaming in the soft glow of the kitchen, and turned him around gently by putting a directing pressure on his hips and waist.  John whistled low as he surveyed his waist, chest, shoulders, back, and perfectly sculpted ass, rotating him around slowly till once again they were face to face, bare chest to bare chest.

“John,” Dorian said, eerily breathily for someone that didn't exactly need to breathe, and John could wait no more. He slid his hand into Dorian’s and squeezed, passing him a sidelong glance from under smoldering eyes and walked through the doors of the sunroom towards the bed.  John noticed that Dorian walked stiff legged, a blatant testimony to the fact that he was unused to the thrum of sensation now hovering in his groin, and guided them through the dark to stand next to his bed where he turned to face Dorian once more.  Dorian’s eyes glowed softly, and the blue electric light show pierced the darkness as John reached down to undo Dorian’s belt and pants.

“John!”  Dorian moaned with need and followed John’s lead, imitating the motions of undoing John’s belt, button, and zipper, and reached a hand in to free John’s cock. 

They freed each other and themselves of all their layers till they stood facing one another naked, cocks taut and touching, Dorian’s humming ever so softly as it vibrated at the tip.  John took them both in his hands and pressed them together, the vibration coming off of Dorian almost too much to bear.  After a few delicious strokes of both cocks in his hand, he released them both and lowered himself back onto the bed, thighs splaying open and pulled Dorian down with him so that Dorian was between his knees and sighed.  There was a moment of unsuriety, when legs tangled with legs, one real and three synthetic, all moving and sliding and vibrating with their own frequency and need, and John shifted his thighs apart till Dorian pressed himself between them, organic cock touching vibrating cock.  They both groaned as their bodies slid into place, navigating and claiming the places where they clicked and fit together.

They were all skin and elbows and knees and skin; touching, feeling, pulsing, and Dorian hovered his chest over John’s, pressing in for a kiss.  He raised himself up again so he could look at John beneath him, and moved to get a better view.  John lay stretched out underneath Dorian, solid and yet vulnerable, and Dorian slid down his body, mapping a trail of kisses down his chest towards regions beyond.  The touch was almost to light to take, and John groaned as he pushed his torso up to meet Dorian’s exploring lips and tongue.  As the android steadied his body on one outstretched arm, he brought his other hand up to slide along John’s chest and torso, making his way down to where John’s cock was bobbing against his belly.  Dorian watched John’s face as his fingers made their way towards and around the length of John’s cock, fingertips glowing blue with the exploratory touches.   

“Stroke it,” escaped John’s lips, almost before he even realized he was saying it, and he gasped at the heat coiling in his belly as Dorian began to do just that.  Dorian slid his hand up and over John’s cock, twisting it in his fist as he rose towards the tip and then pressing it back down towards the base in the tight circle he formed with his thumb and fingertips.

“Like that?” Dorian quizzed, watching John’s face contort as he moved his hand up and back.

“Yes. Oh, yes, just like that, oh wait…”  John grabbed at Dorian’s hand to still his movements and panted, “Not too much, Dee – it’s… it’s been a while…”

Dorian nodded in the dark and moved his head down to map even more kisses in the tawny fur at the base of John’s length.  Again, the kisses were so mind-crushingly soft that John squirmed against Dorian’s lips to increase the friction.  As he pushed himself up and at Dorian’s sweet kisses, he felt the android open his mouth and slide his lips down over the head of his cock, pushing his length into his mouth until his lips pressed flush against the base. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, John thought, “ _okay.  If I’m going to die, it’s going to be right now.”_

But he didn't die, and instead went quite boneless and his jaw slacked and his eyelids fluttered almost completely closed as he whispered, “Deeeee…” and trailed off.  Dorian pressed a hand into the skin at the base and sucked his way up and down the length.  John’s hands snaked around to the back of Dorian’s head and across the sensitive data port, eliciting another static-y moan from the DRN, only this time, it vibrated around John's cock, still deep in his mouth.  

A steady deft hand found its way up John’s synthetic leg and then across to his organic leg to where it settled at the moist, humid spot right in between and made little circles at the ring of muscle. 

“Wait,” gasped John, and he fisted the sheets, raising his head up and pressing his chin into his chest.  Dorian stilled his movements and looked at John in the dark, expectantly.  “Uh, not too fast, Dee…”

“Should I move more slowly?” Dorian asked, continuing the movement at John’s tender hole but at a much slower pace.

“No, that’s…hnnng… that’s not what I meant.  I just meant… not sure that we should… go all the way…”  It sounded so juvenile to John as he heard himself say it out loud that he rolled his eyes in the dark at himself, and he took the moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm.

“I’m not going to hurt you, John…”  Dorian spoke like he had years of experience, when in reality he was the real novice (he just happened to have a pretty in-depth play book loaded into his systems).

John huffed, suddenly very conscious of the vulnerable position that he was splayed out in in front of his lovely, amazing, sexy, department-issued partner.

“I’m not afraid that you’re going to hurt me, Dorian…”

“Then what?  What are you afraid of?”

“I’m… I’m afraid it’s going to feel too good and that I’m... I''m never going to want to stop…” 

Dorian smiled, and John could feel the touches circling him begin again as Dorian said, “Yes, John.  I’m going to make sure that it feels too good… Besides; I’m not going anywhere.”

John groaned and spread himself wider, guiding Dorian’s first finger tip in past the ring of muscle and clenched, rocking it back and forth. 

“Dorian…” he choked, simultaneously wanting more and fearing more, and Dorian moved and stretched the hole infinitesimally at first and then deeper by tiny degrees until the initial stings turned into pure ragged pleasure. 

“Dorian!” John huffed again. “Fuck!”  And he scrabbled his hands up and down Dorian’s back and shoulders, arms, pulling him into him, needy with want.  John heard the squick of a bottle of lube opening and cocked his head up to look at Dorian, grinning ravenously for a moment till his eyes rolled back in his head with anticipation.  “SO clever, Dorian… So, so, so good,” he sighed. “Are you sure this is your first time?” 

“Positive,” Dorian replied throatily, and he lubed and slicked his finger without taking the tip out of John’s puckering hole.  Slowly, so achingly slowly, Dorian rocked the now-lubed finger in deeper and deeper into John till it disappeared in up to the knuckle. His other hand slipped up to the back of John’s neck at the hairline and he squeezed gentle and soothing caresses and circled a thumb lazily below his earlobe.

“Oh yeah, John.  Oh, yeah.  Oh, John.  Oh.”

Dorian’s sexy rhythmic litany and the ministrations of his clever fingers had John charged up and he whined in a sexy falsetto and pushed himself deeper onto Dorian’s finger.  Dorian responded by adding another slicked up finger and pushing both in together until they were gliding easily back and forth, and John pushed hot steady breaths rhythmically out through his nose with each heaving contraction of his diaphragm.  He was hot, horny, ready, and if Dorian didn't slide that perfect cock in there quick he was going to lose it.

“Dorian,” he gasped, writhing.  “Dorian, I’m so close… I’m so… so close… hnnng… please.  Please fuck me, before I come…”

Dorian slid his fingers out as he slid himself up between John’s careening hips and replaced them with his pulsating cock, blue lights dancing wildly in the dark, one hand steadying himself and the other pressed to the small of John’s back, angling him to perfection.  Dorian pushed into him and John saw stars, and could feel the tip of Dorian’s perfectly slick cock literally vibrating while the shaft pulsed.  Dorian slid in so slowly and kept sliding in, more and more, till John felt like he was completely filled.  He stilled for a moment, checking John’s vitals and scanning his eyes across his chest, hips, and thighs, till he felt John start to pump and push back at him.  Dorian started a slow, maddening slide in and out of John and gradually picked up speed as John bucked, harder and harder, more and more urgent.  The strokes were heaven, each one successively more of pleasure than pain, and when the vibrating tip of Dorian’s cock buzzed relentlessly into John’s sweet sensitive spot just behind his prostate, it was done.  John felt the roll of heat start in his belly and he grabbed for his cock, pumping it one, two, three times in rapid succession to match Dorian’s strokes and release his orgasm. And, as if Dorian felt it too, he gave three quick thrusts and John was coming, crying out, shooting hot streaks up his chest and across his belly and even up to the smooth brown neck of the DRN.  As soon as John came, something amazing happened to Dorian.  Dorian’s eyes rolled back in his head and his core contracted, bending him in half. He cried out quickly five times in rapid fire succession, “Oh! Oh! Oh! OH! OHhh…” the last cry trailing out to become a soft whimper and he folded himself over John.  The vibrating and the pulsing stopped, and his huge and perfect cock began the perfect retreat, sliding out of John as they both sank onto each other, John sighing in sweet relief and Dorian giggling and sighing and bubbling his cheeks all at once.

Dorian rolled over on to the bed next to John, eyes wide and searching the glass panels of the sunroom ceiling as John laid one arm over his eyes, still gasping in sweet relief.

“Dorian.  That was…  That was….  Amazing.”  Eyes still covered, John continued, saying, “That was the best… And most powerful orgasm… Of my entire life.  Amazing.  Amazing.  Amazing.”  He couldn't and wouldn't stop saying it.

“Mine, too.” Dorian said it like it was a historical fact, and rolled over on his side to face John, eyes blazing.  John had to laugh, a real belly laugh, all of the tension gone as he laid next to this sweet… guy, robot, love alien, whatever… and brought his hand to his cheek, thumb sliding over his lips. 

They locked eyes for a moment, replaying the moments in their own minds, silently, till John settled himself back on the pillows, punching them up behind his head until they were perfect, and then wrapped his arm around Dorian and guided him back into the crook of his right arm.  Dorian shifted, snuggling closer into him, and wound his right arm across John’s stomach.

They lay in silence for seven minutes and fifty three seconds (Dorian noted) and Dorian listened to John’s heartbeat through his chest.  “John.  I want to ask you something.  I hope that this is not too forward.  Please stop me if it is.”

John breathed deeply and steadily but said nothing in response, so Dorian continued.

“John, I would like you to consider accepting me as your soul mate.  I've researched it and I have concluded that our relationship contains all of the necessary qualifications, man.  You can take some time to think about it, but please consider it.”

By this time, John had slipped into a drowsy half sleep and could hear Dorian talking but somehow the words weren't really making any sense.  John snuggled closer to Dorian and huffed “…kay, Dor,” and promptly fell asleep.

That was good enough for Dorian, and he grinned and put himself in sleep mode to conserve energy until such time that he would have to extract himself from the tangle of John’s limbs and put himself and John’s leg properly on their respective chargers. 

Somehow, despite the fact that his energy reserves were down at around 50%, at that moment, Dorian felt as if he could run a million miles and never have to stop to recharge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and following. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. A friend texted me today that she read in US TODAY that Almost Human has been canceled. Of course, we wept openly at that and vowed with even more determination than before to keep these characters alive. Be in touch, shoot me a line, and let me know what your thoughts were on this! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> The definition of soulmate and the ensuing example is lifted word for word from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=soulmate


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